Celestial, just celestial

Recently ISKSP posted up Circle X's first release, an untitled four-song EP on Celluloid Records, from 1980. It revealed the talents of raw, manic iconoclasts set on tearing down & reinventing the stuff of rock musick itself with a strong philosophical bent & intense early standards like the relentless "Onward Christian Soldiers" & the blues-tinged terrorism of "Tender." The record’s cover - identifiable only by a spray painted circle with an X through it, a symbol the group chose instead of a name - gratingly reflected its content. "Marketeers" inevitably forced a spelled out "Circle X" on them.

I hadn't listened to the band for many years, but after listening to that first release, I dug out all of their other stuff I have & that's all I've been listening to since then. The band next recorded the equally inventive but more varied Prehistory LP, unreleased until 1983, on the California-based consortium of Enigma & Index Records. Some say this recording served as a crucial blueprint for the subsequent New York noise scene that spawned Sonic Youth, Swans & Live Skull. The LP went out of print rapidly, but was later reissued semi-legally by the French label Sordide Sentimentale with the addition of a booklet of essay texts & skin disorder photos. Mutant Sounds has posted this, in my opinion, the bands finest. (Nothin' Sez...Happily reissued in 2008 by David Grubbs' Blue Chopsticks label.)

When I realized that Celestial was unavailable anywhere that I could find, I decided it was my duty to post it here. If you don't know this band or haven't heard then of late, or were looking for this release, then without further ado...

"The morphology of the song & its text; building blocks words of inaudibility. The word may be dead & its object the text yet the entirety of the project may create a conditional world where the right perception of the song will change the world. After hearing: Liberation; Late in the song like night. The distant sputter & hiss: Man stands as a swan. The list of ingredients which constitute it as a thing:

Part A. Part B. Part C.
Ship's Pulley
Rope - Coiled
Guitar - Detuned
Open, Standard
Measure
Trigger - Envelope
Generator
Korg ----------- Casio
Synthesizer
Bass drum - 2 x 4 - Pony
Clamps - Orange
Temper Metal Rim
Digitech Blue Box
Muff
Boss - Lavender - Box
PA Budapest Station
Mosque Konya
+ ALI
The Egg Shaker
Device Radio Band
Bow
Hammond
Violin
File - Chunka - Loop
Long Squeak
Vacuum
Slam - Splice - Hiss
Traps
Snares
Typewriter
The Body, its Voice
Guided by:

On the cellular level, the equipment's interior construction, the creation of the conditional setting."

Bruce Witsiepe - voice, guitar, & tapes; Tony Pinotti - voice, synthesizer & tapes; Rik Letendre - bass & keyboards; Martin Köb - drums. Violin on "Crow's Ghost" & "They Come Prancing" - Lois Dilivio. All music by Circle X, all lyrics by Bruce Witsiepe except "They Come Prancing" - Lakota traditional courtesy of Bureau of American Ethnology Collection.

Circle X - Celestial, Matador OLE 091-1 , 1994.

Side 1/2 A:
Fig. #1 - Kyoko
Fig. #2 - Pulley
Fig. #3 - Crow's Ghost
Fig. #4 - Gothic Fragment

Side Ø B:
Fig. #5 - Tell My Horse
Fig. #6 - Some Things Don't Grow Back
Fig. #7 - Little Celestial Poet
Fig. #8 - They Came Prancing


Enjoy,
NØ

The band recorded four white-vinyl seven-inch singles for Matador, American Gothic & Lungcast Records that were released over the course of 1992. Titled The Ivory Tower, the records were compiled into a box set & re-released under the auspices of EDITIONS ANTI-UTOPIA in mid-’93. If anyone has these, please post them & let me know. Please!

UPDATE: Moments after I posted this, a friend from Portugal hooked me up with all four of these gems. These four records are stunning from start to finish. Thanks Imbroglio