cosmos factory • cosmos factory (Columbia,1973)

Occasionally I am asked questions of a philosophic nature; "am I dying meester?", "will this operation bring intimacy back to our marriage", or "why do I only have one eye"...can't tell you how many times I've had to field that one...but every once in a while I get my most favorite. Coming out of the post operation anesthetic a patient will groggily ask "what is the invisible glue and cartilage that holds existence together". Now I am well versed in medical procedures, and I suspect it is because of this the common extension of logic is that I would know how things really are. Sadly to say I have been to all for corners of the universe (and yes there are four - they tend to fold in on themselves but I'll explain that another time) and I am at times equally at a loss as to what hold it all together. For a while I had thought that anger and the desire to survive was one of the essential ingredients. That theory had gone out the window when I met the fearsome Ellacultos. At that point of their evolution they hand willfully mutated into a sort of plant / machine. Somehow by that advancement in their physiology they had bypassed the problems associated by most animals. Now they only craved logic. With amazing quickness other empires had crumbled around them, and yet the Ellacultos still were dissatisfied. Now that they had survived, what was the point. There were no possible challengers in their section of the universe, and while the need for successful expansion of empire was alluring, it was all hollow victories after all. As they were now a Plant / Machine combination, individuality was extracted. When the death march of boredom started up, a new unthinkable idea was presented - suicide. In mass the Ellacultos returned to the planet that started the outward migration and proceeded to fight amongst themselves. Knowing that the direct mindedness of being part machine would get them to fight to the death, each and every one of them had a war. After roughly a few weeks the population was dead. I had always speculated that the decision for this action was not philosophical, but that of a malfunction of computer circuitry. Thankfully the electronics that made them what they were isn't that easily back engineered...that doesn't mean that it won't be, but for now we are safe...

So where does that leave us, well for me I am grateful that the fern on my mantel doesn't harbor any designs for conquest and listening to Cosmos Factory self titled first lp. I believe I have written in previous posts my affection for Japanese rock. Like most things from Japan that are based on western ideals - they get it so close, but then something goes wonderfully wrong. Where the Germans could have a fair grip on singing in English, far easterners just can't seem to do it. Something wrong happens - tongues that are not equipped to the various Latin based letters and consonants flop warily around, producing something not unlike singing backwards.

Opening with a Mort Garison / Movie of the Week like instrumental called "soundtrack 1984", we then dive head long into heavy Hammond Organ and angelic choir vocals territory of "Maybe". This song, like all the others are sung in Japanese, keeping the otherness intact. Perhaps there are some Bowie like inflections detectable, but the confidence of the band saves this from being a maudlin copycat.

Maudlin or perhaps even turgid the best way to describe the overall tone of the record. From the cover and gatefold depicting decay and abandonment, to the songs where everything is just short of pop Wagner. This is not a light and uplifting album. If everything is going to crap in your life that that moment, you may want to keep the suicide prevention hot line on speed dial. These are the Quaaluded Spiders from Mars. Thankfully there is a slightly less apocalyptic song "Soft Focus", that uses a sort of Asian sounding melody, but it is moody none the less. The second side of the record is comprised of the four part suite "An Old Castle Of Transylvania". It is everything you would expect with a title like that; mysterious organ chords, distorted guitars, spooky Mellotron fills, and more end of the world vocalizing. If Jean Rollin shot his Vampire films in Japan instead of France, Cosmos Factory would have supplied the perfect score.

I have seen this album listed as An Old Castle Of Transylvania, but nowhere is that used beside as the title for the suite. What is listed on the back cover is Merry go round. Was this at one point the working title of the record?

Cosmos Factory would go on to make three other records, that I am yet to hear. Apparently the follow up to the first record was a electronic soundtrack, and then the remaining two are in the vein of heavy metal. I hope that isn't true for the last true, I would hate to think that in a attempt to keep things going that there was a retrograde of intelligence.


Please click on the review title for selected track: Maybe.

Steven Stapleton & David Tibet • The Sadness Of Things (United Dairies, 1991)

Your good doctor is in a bit of a quandary, and taking a walk in the snow currently blanketing New York has not made things any clearer. I'm not sure if I had witnessed a car wreck, nervous break down, a bad power struggle, infidelity, anima dimorphism, imaginary lycanthropy, or any other form of what the hell was that a few months ago. Regretfully I am a man driven to get to the bottom of things. Had I only picked up a different match book and filled out the coupon, my entries would be written by the aesthetics a different hand. That appendage would be one guided by the mind of a private investigator. While my psyche has been honed to look for signs of malignant growth, or even host parasite imbalance, and these are detecting skills, I wish I was better suited to the world of mind and motivation.

When I find myself in such a state, wondering what has happened, or perhaps even my role in unfolding events, one can either chose music that numbs all thought or enhance it. To perform audio anesthetic I would opt for something ridiculous not unlike T.Rex or even Esquivel, but for moments of reflection the nod must be given to Steven Stapleton and David Tibet's apex of inner-space; The Sadness Of Things.

Sprawled out across two tracks is the fog of contemplation and melancholia. The title track begins with a slow and steady drumbeat, not unlike something one hears at the finer temples in Lasha Lasha. A mournful wooden flute pipes lonely against a indecipherable electronic fog. As this builds in stately momentum a girls voice intones "I am not born. I do not die". Her voice is assured, very much like the words of the departed - not connecting with any event in the room, but still with intention of place. This is the ritual that draws you out of your body and allows you to look down and see that the world was really constructed of back lots and extras. Mono no aware? Most certainly. There are things in this world that will never be fully understood. Nuances is all one can gather, and even then to study it too long its inner workings become various and open ended. No answer is forthcoming. Eventually all one learns is that cruelty is one of the easier actions we are capable of. You walk away muttering the sadness of things. Such is the music of the first track. With a stringent viola line working its way through the gauzy haze eventually David Tibet appears. With a somnambulists dedication he reads bewildering lines asking where the years have gone. By the simple magick of sound he has helped you through your quandary. What is unknown can be left aside, content we are that some mysteries are the sum total of themselves. Now the great work can begin.

By the second track; The Grave And The Beautiful Name Of Sadness, you are fully dislodged and now among the protoplasm and dark mater that holds existence together. With just human voice and echo, Stapleton glides you to somewhere. Yet it seems the trip is more important than the destination. Are these the voices of the departed we hear and are they just sounding off in the fog, with no definitive omens to come for the living?

It seems that this CD has gone out of print and there are no immediate plans to reissue it, which is a shame. Of the collaborations that Stapleton and Tibet have lodged under their names, not just under the designations as Nurse With Wound or Current93 this is some of their most powerful work. Equally a shame is the scarcity of the CD. Used copies are almost impossible to come by, and most due to a mastering issue have disc rot.

Please click on the review title for the selected track: The Sadness Of Things.