Willfully inchoate, defiantly atmospheric, and stubbornly ambient, the early music of His Name Is Alive isn't entirely music either. Though there are melodies, faint ones perhaps, adrift in these decades' old recordings, the intent is a mood, an idea of a feeling, and the tape experiments succeed at achieving that. Following All The Mirrors in The House (Home Recordings 1979 - 1986) and Return To Never (Home Recordings 1979 - 1986 Volume 2), today sees the release of a third volume, Hope Is A Candle (Home Recordings 1985 - 1990 Volume 3), and a box-set, A Silver Thread (Home Recordings 1979 - 1990), that combines these three releases with a bonus disc, Keep The Moon On Time (Home Recordings 1979 - 1990) Volume 4).
With the newest set, Hope Is A Candle (Home Recordings 1985 - 1990 Volume 3), we are taken right up to the year before Warren Defever and crew released their debut proper. The tinkling of "Princess" sits nicely near the percussive "Disappear" here, an indication of some variety in this third collection of early recordings. "Never", however brief, has the faintest stirrings of a melody, while the longer "Salendro" wouldn't have entirely sounded out of place on a Windham Hill record. That's not to suggest that Defever was seeking to be the next Michael Hedges, but some of this is not entirely far off. Still, the musician is mostly interested in something that defies the possibility of being obviously lovely, with the grinding "Still" being proto-industrial, while the feedback-drenched "Halo" marries a guitar with tape loops. The effect is here disturbing, even if elsewhere on this set we find the usual spaciousness we've come to associate with the sound of the early years of Warren Defever. Nothing here is Merzbow, you know, but there are indications on this collection of a dark undercurrent struggling to break forth. The tension as that vibe threatens to come forward is what gives Hope Is A Candle (Home Recordings 1985 - 1990 Volume 3) its sinister momentum.
Keep The Moon On Time (Home Recordings 1979 - 1990) Volume 4) features instrumentals that are closest in sound and style to what ended up on the band's debut, Livonia. It's hard to hear "Something Blood" and not think of the backing tracks for anything on the band's 1990 4AD debut. And while some material here suggests that Warren Defever was listening to a lot of Fripp, there's other stuff, like the hypnotic "Sun Reflection", that sounds to me very much like the Fripp contributions to the instrumental half of David Sylvian's Gone to Earth (1986). At times, the approach, like on the hymnal "6teen Secrets" echoes that of The Durutti Column, but Warren Defever favors a spaciousness that makes these old, short recordings feel as if they're approaching the infinite. Imagine condensing down one of those Eno/Fripp albums to only three minutes and you'll get an idea of what's here. One listen to the brief "Heaven in the Sun" should convince you that what's here on this bonus disc is the sound of the void opened up. For every alternate take here of an earlier track on the box-set, or seemingly throwaway tape loop, the majority of Keep The Moon On Time (Home Recordings 1979 - 1990) Volume 4) reveals just how close Warren Defever was to becoming the young genius we heard in 1990, making music on the label that gave us This Mortal Coil.
My interview with Warren Defever is here.
Hope Is A Candle (Home Recordings 1985 - 1990 Volume 3), and the box-set, A Silver Thread (Home Recordings 1979 - 1990), including the bonus disc, Keep The Moon On Time (Home Recordings 1979 - 1990) Volume 4), are all out today via Disciples.
[Photo: Unsung Hunger/Disciples]