UNITED DAIRIES
Earth Covers Earth
Details
1988 12 UK United Dairies UD029
2500 Black vinyl copies in regular sleeve
Track Listing
Side A
  1. The Dilly Song
  2. Hourglass for Diana
  3. Earth Covers Earth [durtro016cd]
Side B
  1. Rome for Douglas P.
  2. Time Tryeth Truth [cmedd1160]
  3. Hourglass for Abelisk
Vinyl Etchings
Side A: FOR ROSY ABELISK
Side B: AND YOUR EYES SHALL TURN TO GLASS
Personnel
Catherine Wallis
Dik
Lu
Maria Enzell
Chris Wallis
Douglas P.
Sleeve Notes
Current 93: David Michael Tibet - vocals; Tony Wakeford - acoustic and electric guitar; Rose McDowall - vocals; Catherine Wallis - vocals; Dik - piano; Lu - flute; Maria Enzell - violin; Chris Wallis - sitar; Steven Stapleton - accordion; Douglas P. - Stick guitar on 'Rome...'; John Balance -in spirit.

This record is dedicated to Idei-Cho You, son of Yuko and Yongsoo, may he live long and happily. My thanks to Tony Wakeford of Sol Invictus for allowing me to adapt 'Fields' into 'Earth Covers Earth'. This is a United Dairies release made in England, and was engineered by Dik and produced by Steven Stapleton. All photographs by Ruth Bayer. A second utterance for Comus. My thanks to: Sianne, Ási, James Low, Jane Mayers, Harry Oldfield, HÖH
May all sentient beings be happy.
David Michael Tibet, London 16/X/1988.
Earth Covers Earth
Details
1989 12 JP Supernatural Organization SURLP4
1000 Black vinyl numbered copies in regular sleeve
with postcard
Include 7" Hourglass SURLP4C/D
Track Listing
Side A
  1. The Dilly Song
  2. Hourglass (for Diana)
  3. Earth Covers Earth (for Aki) [durtro016cd]
Side B
  1. Rome (for Douglas P.)
  2. Time Tryeth Truth [cmedd1160]
  3. Hourglass (for Rosy Abelisk)
Sleeve Notes
None
Other Images
Related Items
Earth Covers Earth
Details
1992 CD UK Durtro DURTRO012CD
In jewel case
iTunes UK Durtro
Track Listing
  1. The Dilly Song (1:41)
  2. Hourglass for Diana (6:43)
  3. Earth Covers Earth (4:23) [durtro016cd]
  4. Rome for Douglas P. (3:57)
  5. Time Tryeth Truth (4:26) [cmedd1160]
  6. Hourglass for Rosy Abelisk (3:12)
  7. The Dilly Song (1:08)
  8. At The Blue Gates Of Death (6:16)
  9. She Is Dead And All Fall Down (5:13)
  10. God Has Three Faces Wood Has No Name (2:56)
  11. The Blue Gates Of Death (Before and Beyond Them) (8:35)
  12. The Dreammoves Of The Sleeping King:
    1. He Falls Into Fields Of Sleep
    2. The Dreamer Dreams A Dream
    (19:40)
Personnel
Douglas P.
Lu
Maria Enzell
Chris Wallis
Dik
David Kenny
Steve Ignorant
Sleeve Notes
"What is the world ? What Is It? It is nothing. if it is, why is it? The world is as nothing."
inscription on a tombstone at San Lorenzo Maggiore

Earth Covers Earth
Tracks 1-7
Current 93 by the grace of God in the twinkling of an eye: David Michael Tibet - vocals; Tony Wakeford - guitar; Douglas P. - stick guitar on "Rome for Douglas P."; Rose McDowall - vocals, guitar; John Balance - all spirit and smiles; Steven Stapleton - accordion; Lu - flute; Maria Enzell - violin; Chris Wallis - sitar; Dik - piano; Ian Read - horse whispering.

Four Songs From Japan
Tracks 8-11
Current 93 at the blue gates of death themselves: David Michael Tibet - vocals; Rose McDowall - vocals, guitars; Douglas P. - guitars, ssab sdrawkcab and jingle bells; Tony Wakeford - bass, guitar; Boyd Rice - unpleasant smiles and amorality in the corner.

The Dreammoves Of The Sleeping King
Track 12
All silence Current 93 they: David Michael Tibet - all; Steven Stapleton - all; David Kenny - all; Steve Ignorant - screaming; John Balance - whispers, stick, guitar; Boyd Rice - whispers; Douglas P. - laughter.

Tracks 1-7 recorded in 1988 and mixed by Steven Stapleton and Tibet; tracks 8-11 recorded in 1989 and mixed by Tibet and Douglas P.; track 12 recorded in 1985 and mixed by David Kenny and Tibet with suggestive assistance from Steven Stapleton, Esq. of Billingsgate.
Tracks 1-6 were originally released as Earth Covers Earth on United Dairies, UD 029.

Tracks 9-10 were originally released on a Shock 7", Shock SX003 and were then reissued with the addition of track 11 on "The Portable Altamont", Shock CD SX012. Along with track 8, these 4 songs, recorded in Tokyo, were to have been on a Japanese Current 93 album; the album was never finished, though we did finish these songs as well as two other songs, "I Am Everywhere Broken And Spinning" and "The Signs And The Sighs Of Emptiness" which appeared on the untitled joint Current 93 and Death In June compilation album released on NER Records in 1991 (BAD VC693).
Track 12 was recorded in 1985 as part of the material towards the "Killy Kill Killy" piece that was released on The "Nightmare Culture" mini-LP. In 1988 I was working on a soundtrack for a film that Steven Stapleton and I were thinking of making, based on the idea of the lands where dreams went when they died (an idea that I later used on the "In Menstrual Night" album) and this material is part of the music that we were putting together for it. The film remains unmade, and much of the music unreleased.
My thanks to Steven Stapleton and Stefan Jaworzyn for allowing me to re-issue those recordings originally released on their labels.
Tracks 7.8 and 12 are previously unreleased.

Earth Covers Earth was originally dedicated to You-Sun; so it is still. I again thank Tony Wakeford for allowing me to adapt his song "Fields" into "Earth Covers Earth". Earth Covers Earth was a second utterance for Comus.

I would like to thank all those who have helped and succoured me: Steven Stapleton, Douglas P., James low, ROse McDowall, Tony Wakeford, Mannox, Joolie Wood, HÖH, Nick Saloman, Andrew King, Ian Read, Lu, Paul Cheshire, Malindaine, Michael Cashmore, Starfish, DiDo, Chris Wallis, Roo, Nyida, Lilith, Debbie Fowler, John Balance, Yuko, Yongsou, Ayame, Konori, Rinpoche, Shirley Collins, Freya Aswynn, Akiko Hada, Cox, Thorn, Boyd, Karl Blake.
This CD was mastered by Denis at Porkys, and distributed by David, Alison and Alan at World Serpent. My thanks to all of them, and to Starfish for typesetting.
All lyrics by David Tibet, except as noted. All photographs by Ruth Bayer.

All titles Current 93/David Tibet. We are dead and all fall down.

David Tibet, London, October 1992. Terra tegit Terram. May all be happy.
Reviews
Earth Covers Earth was the first Current 93 album I obsessed over. I acquired it not long after I found a copy of Emblems for $2.89 in a bargain bin at a record store where none of the clerks had ever heard of David Tibet or Current 93. It was a godsend. When I first heard Emblems it was like being drawn towards a black hole, and when I finally sealed my fate by listening to Earth Covers Earth I was pulled beyond the event horizon. One of the things I love about this album is the mixture of Tibet's own lyrical songwriting, traditional tunes, and the obscure metaphysical poetry set to music. Pervaded by a vitriolic melancholy, I listen to it when I want to evoke the intermingled feelings of sadness, hope, futility, anger, joy and faith.

World Serpent, now defunct, distributed the disc that I have. Among the 12 songs collected are the six from the original LP release of Earth Covers Earth on United Dairies, as well as an additional version of "The Dilly Song." The second song on the disc "Hourglass (for Diana)" immediately spoke to me on my first listen, and it still speaks to me today. Seventeenth century poet John Hall speaks through it across the centuries with David Tibet as his living mouthpiece. Simple but elegant guitar tracery forms the perfect propulsive backdrop for the quavering violin, at first just sliding out a slow line, a force that builds in tandem with Tibet's impassioned recitation. When he sings the words, "how senseless are our wishes / yet how great! / with what toil we pursue them / with what sweat! / yet most times for our hurts / so small we see / like children crying for some mercurie" the song kicks in with the violinist sawing hasty circular notes across the strings, as Tibet continues to spit forth his lyrical invective against the works of mankind.

At the same time the words show compassion and understanding. I had a gut reaction to the paradoxical lyrics for the song, taken from the poem "On An Houre-Glasse" and my obsession led me to look further into the works of John Hall. Many were only available on microfiche in the rare book room at Cincinnati's downtown library. The song is repeated on the sixth track as "Hourglass (for Rosy Abelisk)" and here it is even more haunting with a lisping child's voice reading it nearly deadpan. Accompanied by an eerie accordion drone courtesy of Steve Stapleton, and echoing female screams placed low in the mix, it is very disconcerting to hear the young child read lines like "issuing in blood and sorrow from the wombe / crauling in tears of mourning to the tombe." The same voice also sings the title track, which is beautiful in its simplicity as the piano and guitar meld together striking poignant chords. The lyrics are taken from Henry King and again grapple with mans impermanence and the transience of all his efforts and works, the dominant theme of this collection, and a recurring one throughout all of David's work. "Time Tryeth Truth" is another setting for the same words. Here the boy, David, and Rose Macdowall sing joined by a pensive flute in the foreground.

While David's lyrical performance on "Rome (for Douglas P.)" is probably my least favorite on the disc, the song does have a nice murmuring drone coupled with guitar distortion that recurs with the chorus. The theme of Rome as a corrupt spiritual Imperium overlaying this world is characteristic of Tibet's work. His visionary conception of Rome, while highly personal and idiosyncratic, also puts him in league with other cultural heroes of mine like William Blake, who believed that Roman art was destructive to the natural imagination, and Philip K. Dick who believed that history stopped in the first century A.D. the Roman Empire never having ended. Though less refined on this song, the motif finds its apogee on Black Ships Ate the Sky from 2006 where his conjuration of Caesar as Antichrist reaches tangible perfection.

The disc also brings four songs recorded in Tokyo and originally intended for release on a Japanese album that was never completed. In my opinion the lyrics for "At the Blue Gates of Death" are where David began to tap into his authentic voice as a poet, though the first version of the song is cluttered and suffers from the extra noise. The children singing in the background are interesting but his penchants for using their voices is used to a more satisfying effect on All The Pretty Little Horses. The bass guitar, played backwards, is what muddles up the mix, taking attention away from the words, which are the songs strength. His voice is also less sure of itself than it seems on "At the Blue Gates of Death (Before and Beyond Them)." In the second when he sings along to a simpler accompaniment of guitar and Rose's vocal harmonies he is at his most vulnerable, and his most durable, which makes it all the more endearing. It is a song that I have returned to again and again over the years. The symbolism and allegory that I've come to expect from David are all present, but here he is more accessible because he has let the guard of overly cryptic lyrics down.

The closing "The Dreammoves of the Sleeping King" is a great example of the combined genius arrived at when Steve Stapleton and David work together. Again, the music shares methods of working and common motifs that pop up repeatedly throughout Current 93's discography. This twenty-minute barrage of somnolent madness is quite similar to that heard on Faust. Both contain the voices of children reading fragmentary bits of the Lord's Prayer, as if it alone would protect them from the nightmarish and otherworldly forces the sounds invoke. Melted they smear across the audio spectrum in hazy blurs of thickly swathed vibrato. Ever malleable, it contains moments that appeal to both my darker and more whimsical sensibilities. Stapleton and Tibet had this material in mind for a film they wanted to make about the land where dreams go to when they die. The film was never made, and some of the other music for it, as yet unreleased, still remains lurking in their archives.

Pictured on the cover and in the inlay are colorful photographs of a strange cast of characters: Rose Macdowall, Tony Wakeford, Douglas P., Ian Read, John Balance, Tibet, Steve Stapleton, Diana Rogerson, and children. As I started to trace David Tibet's influences and the various connections making up his musical family tree I was initiated into a whole new world of listening, and of literature. The music on this disc opened me up and in the process I was transformed. In 2005 the Free Porcupine Society reissued the original six tracks in a limited vinyl run. It would be nice to see the 12 songs from the CD reissued, remastered, repackaged and remixed. I'm sure some related material could also be scrounged up for inclusion. David and his friends at Coptic Cat have already done so with a number of other albums from Current 93's extensive back catalogue. Earth Covers Earth deserves the same lavish treatment.

Justin Patrick

07 February 2010
Earth Covers Earth
Details
2004 est. CD RU Ars Nova 8500
500 In jewel case
Bootleg
Track Listing
  1. The Dilly Song (1:41)
  2. Hourgalss For Diana (6:43)
  3. Earth Covers Earth (4:23) [durtro016cd]
  4. Rome For Douglas P. (3:57)
  5. Time Tryeth Truth (4:26) [cmedd1160]
  6. Hourglass For Rosy Abelisk (3:12)
  7. The Dilly Song (1:08)
  8. At The Blue Gates Of Death (6:16)
  9. She Is Dead And All Fall Down (5:13)
  10. God Has Three Faces Wood Has No Name (2:56)
  11. The Blue Gates Of Death (Before And Beyond Them) (8:37)
  12. The Dreammoves Of The Sleeping King:
    1. He Falls Into Fields Of Sleep
    2. The Dreamer Dreams A Dream
    (19:40)
Personnel
Douglas P.
Lu
Maria Enzell
Chris Wallis
Dik
David Kenny
Steve Ignorant
Sleeve Notes
Earth Covers Earth
Tracks 1-7
Current 93 by the grace of God in the twinkling of an eye: David Michael Tibet - vocals; Tony Wakeford - guitar; Douglas P. - stick guitar on "Rome for Douglas P."; Rose McDowall - vocals, guitar; John Balance - all spirit and smiles; Steven Stapleton - accordion; Lu - flute; Maria Enzell - violin; Chris Wallis - sitar; Dik - piano; Ian Read - horse whispering.

Four Songs From Japan
Tracks 8-11
Current 93 at the blue gates of death themselves: David Michael Tibet - vocals; Rose McDowall - vocals, guitars; Douglas P. - guitars, ssab sdrawkcab and jingle bells; Tony Wakeford - bass, guitar; Boyd Rice - unpleasant smiles and amorality in the corner.

The Dreammoves Of The Sleeping King
Track 12
All silence Current 93 they: David Michael Tibet - all; Steven Stapleton - all; David Kenny - all; Steve Ignorant - screaming; John Balance - whispers, stick, guitar; Boyd Rice - whispers; Douglas P. - laughter.

Tracks 1-7 recorded in 1988 and mixed by Steven Stapleton and Tibet; tracks 8-11 recorded in 1989 and mixed by Tibet and Douglas P.; track 12 recorded in 1985 and mixed by David Kenny and Tibet with suggestive assistance from Steven Stapleton, Esq. of Billingsgate.
Tracks 1-6 were originally released as Earth Covers Earth on United Dairies, UD 029.

Tracks 9-10 were originally released on a Shock 7" and were then reissued with the addition of track 11 on "The Portable Altamont". Along with track 8, these 4 songs, recorded in Tokyo, were to have been on a Japanese Current 93 album; the album was never finished, though we did finish these songs as well as two other songs, "I Am Everywhere Broken And Spinning" and "The Signs And The Sighs Of Emptiness" which appeared on the untitled joint Current 93 and Death In June compilation album released on NER Records in 1991.
Earth Covers Earth
Details
2005 12 US Free Porcupine Society FPS11
600 Black vinyl copies in silk-screened wrap-around sleeve
In printed plastic sleeve
Track Listing
Side A
  1. The Dilly Song
  2. Hourglass for Diana
  3. Earth Covers Earth [durtro016cd]
Side B
  1. Rome for Douglas P.
  2. Time Tryeth Truth [cmedd1160]
  3. Hourglass for Abelisk
Personnel
Douglas P.
Lu
Maria Enzell
Chris Wallis
Dik
David Kenny
Steve Ignorant
Sleeve Notes
Current 93 were then, and were never again: David Tibet, Tony Wakeford, Steven Stapleton, Diana Rogerson, Douglas P., Rose McDowall, John Balance, Lu, Chris Wallis, Dik, Maria Enzell, Ian Read. Originally released on United Dairies in 1988 and mixed by Steven Stapleton. It was a second utterance for Comus. Cover art by David Michael. Photography by Ruth Bayer. Thankyou Rob and Kelly and The Porcupine Society. This re-issue os dedicated to my friends Ben Chasny and Will Oldham. I love my wife Andria. God is Love. David Michael 22 / III / 2005.
Other Images
Earth Covers Earth
Details
2016 November 12 UK United Dairies UD029
1 test pressing of earlier release
hand-made sleeve by Steven Stapleton
Track Listing
Side A
  1. The Dilly Song
  2. Hourglass for Diana
  3. Earth Covers Earth [durtro016cd]
Side B
  1. Rome for Douglas P.
  2. Time Tryeth Truth [cmedd1160]
  3. Hourglass for Abelisk
Personnel
Catherine Wallis
Dik
Lu
Maria Enzell
Chris Wallis
Douglas P.
Earth Covers Earth
Sleeve Notes
Digital
Reviews