Released
1992
Label
Artware
Reviewed by
Michael C. Lund
Contact
Artware
Taunusstrasse 63b
65183 Wiesbaden
Germany
Tel: 49(0)611-52 41 33
Fax: 49(0)611-5 96 54
Last Edit/Update
24 March, 1999
Oral Constitution
BIBEL PREIK
(CD-EP)
Track Listing
1. Barbies Sang
2. Oddny's Sang
3. Christines Sang
4. En Hymne For Sven
5. --
Oral Constitution's mini-CD Bibel Preik is one of Artware's
older releases, and one that label owner Donna Klemm has referred to as her small
homage to Current 93. The handful of songs featured on the CD are darkly
melodic and beautiful, charged with an erotic and primal intensity, and certainly stab at
some of the same emotions as David Tibet's legendary band.
The most impressive track is the
opening piece "Barbies Sang". A slow melancholy cello theme and serene female
voices serve as the background for maniacal male vocals. Acoustic guitar thematics twinkle
like rays of sun penetrating the roof of tree crowns in a sylvan setting, while crashing
electric guitar chords swoop down intermittently like so many birds of prey. Towards the
end of the piece, the uneasy harmony is further disturbed by forbidding female wails and
whimpers. "Barbies Sang" -- like the other songs on this CD -- achieves a strong
tension by pitting disconcerting and menacing elements against the general frail and
unspoiled feel of Oral Constitution's music.
This strain of innocence corrupted
is at its strongest on "Christines Sang", where a child's voice -- echoing
through the piece like the very memory of childhood itself -- is contrasted by distorted
male vocals that reach out for the child with taloned hands. On "Oddny's Sang"
the equation seems as if reversed, with its female vocalist inviting an elusive lover to
enter her garden. Again, the acoustic guitar theme and vocals radiate innocence,
but the sexually charged words of the song counter this atmosphere, and lends to the song
a strong current of sexual longing.
The CD closes with an untitled
track that plays like the soundtrack for a Pagan ritual. Deep tribal percussions and
clacking, echoing guitar chords, women's yelps and wails, and sparse, incomprehensible
vocal statements. The sound is hollow and primitive, as if the piece had been recorded in
an ancient cave, or a clearing deep in the woods.
