England`s Hidden Reverse – A Secret History of The Esoteric Underground 2e

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My only criticisms of the book are that (1) Keenan sets the bar pretty high in an excellent polemical introduction, but this discursive style is quickly abandoned for a more conventional rockumentary narrative. Noddy had appeared in the sky crucified, and since Christ was God, therefore Noddy was also God, so he was Goddy. The text is a fascinating look at the lives of London-based musicians from these and other bands and the interconnected nature of their social and artistic endeavours.

Jhonn and Sleazy helped ease this queer boy’s confusion, guided him through assorted chemical journeys, and kept him wondrous of the world. Anyway, there was never a dull moment in reading England’s Hidden Reverse, and to those fans of Coil or the others who aren’t sure whether to pick a copy up, you simply must not hesitate. Tibet, Sleazy and Balance all start off in Psychic TV, Genesis’s post-TG project, contributing the intellectual scaffolding and musical direction to PTV’s best and most iconic albums Force The Hands Of Chance (1982) and Dreams Less Sweet (1983), before becoming disillusioned with the direction Gen was going in and starting out on their own. These folks were doing some revolutionary outsider art and this work allows a unhindered look at the dark tapestry that brought them together and in the darkness bound them.MIT Press began publishing journals in 1970 with the first volumes of Linguistic Inquiry and the Journal of Interdisciplinary History. Despite knowing NWW and C93, I've never really listened to them, so I was surprised to be just as engrossed in their story, as much as Coil's. It's something of a history of a particular era and mindset in Great Britain, focusing on three bands in particular: Coil, Current 93, and Nurse With Wound.

In Summe ist man ob der Diversität verschiedenster separat und/oder zusammen arbeitender Charaktere schlicht überwältigt - und verliebt. As we get ever further from the time it describes, the more incredible it seems that any of it really happened. It's a tragedy reading it in hindsight of John Balance's death, since we can see the chaotic impulses and self-destructiveness in some of his behaviour and music, and we know how it all ends.

This newly expanded edition of England’s Hidden Reverse, the classic exploration of the English esoteric musical underground that includes the first, and only, biographies of Coil, Current 93, and Nurse With Wound, is based on exclusive interviews and unprecedented access to all three bands’ personal archives. With Gen passing as well in 2020, the world of the 80s and 90s underground subculture described in England’s Hidden Reverse seems to be fading ever faster in time’s rearview mirror. In the course of my explorations, I discovered a label in the UK, World Serpent Distribution, that handled a number of artists who scratched that itch for me. David Tibet, a Malaysian-born Crowley-obsessive armed with a Tibetan thighbone trumpet and a fascination for theology and the occult, would form Current 93.