Soft Black Stars

Soft Black Stars
Studio album by Current 93
Released 1998
Recorded 1997/1998
Genre Apocalyptic folk
Label Durtro
Producer Michael Cashmore, Andria Degens, Christoph Heemann, Steven Stapleton and David Tibet
Current 93 chronology
In a Foreign Town, in a Foreign Land
(1997)		 Soft Black Stars
(1998)		 Calling for Vanished Faces
(1999)

Soft Black Stars is an album by Current 93. All of the music on the album was written and adapted by Michael Cashmore, David Tibet and Maja Elliott with the exception of "Judas as Black Moth", "A Gothic Love Song" and "Whilst The Night Rejoices Profound And Still" the music for which was written by Michael Cashmore. Almost all of the songs feature only David Tibet's lyrics accompanied by minimalistic piano music: with the exception of "Judas as Black Moth" which is solo piano and "Chewing on Shadows" consist of drones, piano, guitar and David Tibet's singing. The artwork was made by David Tibet. "Chewing on Shadows" was released in a different form on vinyl and was included on the album's CD reissue in 2005. In 2003, a live album was released called Some Soft Black Stars Seen Over London which contained live versions for seven of the albums songs.

The delicate and ethereal sounds make it a work almost unique, with a style hardly comparable with that of only seemingly similar albums by other artists (with the partial exception of Peter Hammill's And Close As This).

Track listing

  1. "Judas as Black Moth" – 2:45
  2. "Larkspur and Lazarus" – 6:05
  3. "Gothic Love Song (For N.)" – 4:06
  4. "Mockingbird" – 4:04
  5. "Soft Black Stars" – 3:08
  6. "It Is Time, Only Time" – 5:06
  7. "Antichrist and Barcodes" – 2:26
  8. "The Signs in the Stars" – 3:43
  9. "Whilst the Night Rejoices Profound and Still" – 4:24
  10. "Moonlight, Or Other Dreams, Or Other Fields" – 2:08
  11. "Judas as Black Moth II" – 6:17
  12. "Chewing on Shadows" – 14:48
  13. "Chewing on Shadows (Vinyl Version)" – 12:06 (reissue bonus track)
  14. "Chewing on Shadows (Unreleased Acoustic Version)" – 3:08 (reissue bonus track)

Participants

All listings are given as per the accompanying booklet.

Later editions featured a slightly different list of participants. Most notably being the fact that Christoph Heemann was no longer credited for swirl. Violin was now also referred to as ghost violin.