Catastrophe
Ballet
L'Invitation
Au Suicide Suicide Deffere No5 LP
including 12 page booklet in English and French 1984
Cleopatra Cleo 0546-2 CD including 12 page
booklet
1999
Candlelight Candle039CD CD including 12 page
booklet 1999***
Irond Ltd IROND CD 05-939 CD including 12 page
booklet 2005***
King
Records K25P-564 LP including insert 1985
Contempo
Records Conte 105 LP including 8 page
booklet 1986
Contempo Records Contape 105 Cassette 1986
Contempo
Records Conte 105P Picture Disk LP
1988
Contempo
Records Contedisc105 CD including 8
page
booklet 1987**
LSR
Records NOS 1054-1 LP including 8 page
booklet
1989
LSR Records NOS 1054-2 CD 1989
LSR Records NOS 1054-4 Cassette 1989
Normal Records Normal 181 CD 1995**
.Awake
at the Wall
Sleepwalk
The
Drowning
The
Blue Hour
Evening
Falls
Androgynous
Noise Hand Permeates
Electra
Descending
Cervix
Couch
This
Glass House
The
Fleeing Somnambulist
*The
Somnolent Persuit
*Between
Youth
*After
the Rain
**Awake
at the Wall (live)
**The Drowning
(live)
Produced
by Eric Westfall and Valor Kand
Musical
arrangements by Valor Kand
Engineered
by Eric Westfall at Rockfield Studios, Monmouth, Wales
*The Somnolent
Persuit, Between Youth and After the Rain are bonus tracks on releases
marked ** only
** Awake
at the Wall (live) and The Drowning (live) are bonus tracks on releases
marked*** only
*Between
Youth and After the Rain had previously been released on the Believers
of the Unpure EP
** Awake
at the Wall (live) and The Drowning (live) were recorded at Hollywood
Berwin
Entertainment Center on 20 October 1984
and previously released on the The
Decomposition of Violets - An Evening with Christian Death Live in
Hollywood
album
Musicians:
Rozz Williams (vocals), Valor Kand (guitar & backing vocals),
Gitane
DeMone (keyboards & backing vocals),
Constance Smith (bass) David Glass (drums), Barry Galvin+ (guitar),
Johann
Schumann++ (bass)
+ Barry
Galvin appears on Between Youth, After the Rain, Awake at the Wall
(live)
and The Drowning (live) only
++ Johann
Schumann appears on Between Youth and After the Rain only
L'Invitation
Au Suicide, Cleopatra & Candlelight release
Cover and
booklet design and choice of texts: Mary Lemeur, Yann Farcy and Gerard
Rabel
Photos:
Serge Burner, Irina Ionesco, J-P Guinet and M Tabard
Contempo
Records & LSR Records release
Cover and
booklet design: Valor Kand
Photos:
Lee Black Childers and David Hermon
Graphics:
Avio
Normal Records
release
Cover
design:
Valor Kand
The
Story
of an Ether Drinker
The
Holes
in the Mask
To
Marcel
Schwob
The charm
of horror
tempts
only the strong.
Baudelaire
I
"You
want to see some" my friend de Jakels had said to me, "so be it, obtain
a domino in black satin which is sufficiently elegant, put on a pair of
pumps and, this time, stockings in black silk as well, and wait for me
at your house on Tuesday around half-past ten. I'll come and fetch you".
The following
Tuesday, enveloped in the noisy folds of a long camail, a velvet mask
with
a satin beard fixed behind my ears, I waited for my friend de Jakels in
my bachelor's flat in the Rue Taitbout, while in front of the embers of
the fire I heated my feet which were both irritated and shivering at
the
unaccustomed contact of the silk, outside the paper trumpets and
exasperated
shouts in the confusion of a carnival night reached my ears from the
Boulevard.
It was
fairly strange and even worrying as time went by thinking about it,
that
lonely wake of a masked shape collapsed in an armchair, in the
half-light
of the ground floor littered with curios, dulled with tapestries and,
in
the mirrors hanging from the walls, the high flame of a lamp and the
flicker
of two long, very white, slim, candles, as if for a funeral, and de
Jakels
who did not come! The shouts of the masks breaking out in the distance
increased the silence hostility even more. The two candles burned so
straightly
that in the end I was taken by a bout of nerves and, suddenly
frightened
by these three lights, rose to go and blow one out.
At that
moment one of the door-curtains moved aside and de Jakels entered, de
Jakels?
I had not heard any ringing or opening. How had he introduced himself
into
my apartment? I have often wondered about it since at last de Jakels
was
there before me, de Jakels? That is to say, a long domino, a large daek
shape veulled and masked as I was: "You are ready", inquired his voice
which I did not recognise, it had altered so much, "my coach is here,
we
shall leave".
I had not
heard the coach arriving nor its stopping in front of my windows. In
what
nightmare, into what shadow, what mystery had I begun to descend? "It
is
your hood which is blocking your ears, you are not used to the mask",
de
Jakels thought out loud, having penetrated my silence: that night,
then,
he had all the powers of seeing and raising up my domino, he checked to
his satisfaction on the delecacy of my silk stockings and slim shoes.
The gesture
reassured me, it was truly de Jakels and not another who spoke to me
from
beneath the domino. Another person would not have thought of the
suggestion
made to me by de Jakels the week before. "Very well, we shall be off",
ordered the voice, and in the rustle of crumpled silk and satin we
delved
into the alley of the carriage gateway strikingly similar or so it
seemed
to me, to two huge bats in the flapping of our camails that were
suddenly
raised over the dominos.
Where did
that great wind come from? That unknown breath? The temperature of that
night of Shrove Tuesday, of the mardi-gras, was at the same time so
damp
and so muggy.
II
Where were
we trundling to now, huddled together in the dark shadows of this
extraordinarily
silent cab, whose wheels made no more noise than the horse's shoes on
the
wooden paving-stones of the streets and the macadam of the deserted
avenues?
Where were
we going to along those quays and unknown banks, dimly lit here and
there
by the wan light of an old street lamp? For a long time we had already
from sight lost the strange silhouette of Notre-Dame standing out on
the
other side of the river against aleaden sky, The quai Saint-Michel, the
quai de la Tournelle, even the quai de Bercy, we were far from the
Opera,
the rues Drouot, Le Peletier and the centre. We were not even going to
Bullier, where those shameful vices hold their court and, under cover
of
the mask almost devilishly and cynically confessed to the nights of
mardi-gras
whirl, and my companion kept quiet all the while.
Beside
that calm pale river Seine, under the strides of the bridges as they
became
fewer and father between, along those quays planted with great, thin
trees,
their branches spread out under livid skies like fingers of death an
unreasonable
fright took hold of me, a fear deepened by the inexplicable silence of
de Jakels. I even began to doubt his presence and to believe I was side
by side with a stranger. The band of my companion had seized mine and,
although limp and strengthless, held it in a grip that crushed my
fingers.
That hand of power and will nailed down the words in my throat, and I
felt
whatever whim of revolt within me helt and disappear in that clutch, we
clattered along now outside the fortifications and, over wide roads
bordered
with hedges and the dismal fronts of wine merchants shops and already
closed
gateway taverns, we ran under the moon which had just broken through a
floating mass of clouds, seeming to spread a grey blanket of salt over
that strange suburban landscape. At that moment it seemed to me that
the
horse's hooves rang out on the trodden earth of the roads, and that the
cab's wheels, no longer those of a ghost's. clattered on the stones and
pebbles of the highway.
"It's here,
murmured the voice of my companion, we have arrived, we can get out",
and
as I stammered a timid: "Where are we? - The gateway d'Italie, outside
the fortifications. We have taken the longest route, but the safest, we
shall return by another tomorrow morning." The horses stopped and de
Jakels
released me to open the door and hold out this hand to me.
III
A large very
high room, its walls rough-cast with lime, shutters closed airtight on
the inside of the windows and, all along the room, tables with goblets
made of tin, held down by chains. At the end, raised on three steps,
the
zinc counter, cluttered with liqueurs and bottles, their coloured
labels
of legendary wine merchants, inside the gas whistling high and clear:
the
room, in short, if not more spacious and cleaner, of a well-stocked
gatehouse
tavern, whose trade was doing well.
"Above
all, not a word to anybody at all. Talk to nobody, and answer even
less.
They will see that you are not one of theirs, and we could have an
unpleasant
quarter of an hour. As for me, I'm known", and de Jakels shoved me into
the room.
..............................................................................................................................................................................................
Our host
returned heavily to his counter and I noticed something strange, he was
also masked, but with a coarse carton affair, clownishly lit up,
imitating
a human face.
The two
serving waiting, two giants with their sleeves rolled up over the hairy
biceps of wrestlers, moved around in silence, they also invisible
beneath
the same horrible masks.
The rare
people in disguise who were drinking sitting around the tables were
masked
in velvet and satin. All except one enormous armoured soldier in
uniform,
a sort of brute with a heavy jaw and a ruddy moustache, seated at a
table
near two elegant dominos in mauve silk and who were drinking, their
faces
uncovered, their blue eyes already vague; none of the being encountered
there had a human face. In a corner two large men in blouses with
velvet
caps, masked in black satin, intrigued me by their suspect elegance;
for
their blouses were of pale blue silk, and at the bottom of their
over-new
trousers, were spread out the narrow toes of women clad in silk and
shod
with high heels and, as if hypnotised, I would still be contemplating
this
spectacle if de Jakels had not dragged me to the end of the room
towards
a glass door closed with a red curtain. "Entrance to the ball" was
written
over the door in the ornamented letters of an apprentice art student; a
municipal guard kept watch nearby. It was at least a guarantee; but,
passing
by, having bumped his hand I noticed it was made of wax, of was just as
his pink face bristling with a false moustache, and I had the horrible
conviction that the only being whose presence had reassured me in that
place of mystery was a simple model!...
IV
For how many
hours was it that I wandered alone in the midst of those silent masks,
in that hanger as lofty as a church, and it was a church, in fact, an
abandoned
disaffected church, that huge room with its gothic windows, the
majority
of them half walled up, between their small columns with their foliage
coated with a thick yellowish plaster, where the sculpted flowers
abounded
amidst the capitals.
A strange
ball where nobody danced and where there was no orchestra! De Jakels
had
disappeared and I was alone, abandoned, in the midst of that unknown
crowd.
An old chandelabra of forged iron burned high and bright, suspended
from
the vault, lighting up powdered slabs, of which certain ones of them
black
with inscriptions, perhaps covered up tombs; at the far end, in the
place
where the altar certainly must have reigned, eating mangers and racks
ran
half way up the wall, and in the corners there were forgotten halters
and
harnesses; the ballroom was a stable. Here and there enormous
hairdresser's
mirrors framed with golden paper reflected them, for they were all now
seated, in immobile rows on either side of the former church, buried up
to the shoulders in the old choir stalls.
There they
were, dumb, without a movement, as if they had retreated into the
mystery
under the long hoods of silver sheets, a dull silver with a dead gleam:
for there were no more dominos, nor blouses of blue silk, nor
Columbines,
nor Pierrots, nor horrible disguises; but all these masks were the
same,
covered in the same green robe, a pale green as if sulphured with gold,
with large black sleeves, and all hooded with a dark green, and in the
empty space of the hood, the two eyeholes of their silver cowls.
One would
have said they were the chalk-white faces of the lepers in the old
quarantine
stations, or Lazarets; and from their hands, clad in black; there rose
a long stem of black lillies with their pale leaves, and their hoods,
like
that of Dante, were crowned with black lillies.
And all
these cowls were silent with the stillness of ghosts and, above their
funereal
crowns, the arch of the windows leapt clearly through the white moon
sky
covering their heads with a transparant mitre.
I felt
my reason sink with horror; the supernatural was taking possession of
me:
the stiffness, the silence of all those masked beings! What were they?
One more moment of incertitude and it was madness! I could stand it no
longer and, my hand clawed with anxiety, having approached one of the
masks,
I roughly lifted back its cowl.
Horror!
There was nothing, nothing. My haggared eyes saw no more than the
hollowness
of the hood; the robe, the camail were empty. The being that lived was
no more than a shadow and nothingness.
Mad with
terror, I tore off the cowl of the mask seated in the next stall the
hood
of green velvet was empty; as empty as the hoods of the other masks
seated
along the walls. All had faces of shadows, all were nothingness.
And the
gas burned even more brightly, almost whistling in the high room,
through
the broken windows in the arches the moonlight shone, half blinding
than
a feeling of horror crept over me amidst all those hollow beings; with
their vain appearance of ghosts, a terrible doubt gripped my heart as I
faced all those empty masks.
What if
I were similar to them, what if I too had ceased to exist; and if
beneath
my mask there was nothing, nothing but emptiness! I rushed to one of
the
mirrors. A being from a dream rose before me, hooded in dark green
crowned
with black lillies and masked with silver.
Yet that
mask was myself, for I recognised the gesture of my hand that raised
the
cowl and, gaping with terror, I gave out a loud scream, for there was
nothing
beneath the mask of silver cloth, nothing in the oval of the hood save
the hollowness of the cloth itself around the emptiness; I was dead and
I...
-"You've
been drinking ether again", de Jakels' voice grumbled in my ear. "A
strange
idea to stop your boredom while you were waiting for me". I was laid
out
in the middle of my bedchamber, my body lying on the carpet and my head
resting on the armchair, and de Jakels, in evening dress beneath a
monk's
robe, was giving nervous orders to my dumbfounded man-servant, while
the
two lighted candles, having reached their end, were cracking their
sockets
and awakening me...It was high time.
___________________________
Stories
of Masks
The
attractive
but repulsive mystery of masks! Who will ever be able to give the
technique,
explain the motives and logically demonstrate the overriding need which
some people give into on certain days, to make themselves up, to
disguise
themselves to change their identity, to stop being whatever they are;
in
a word, to escape from themselves?
What are
the instincts, the hungers, the hopes, the longings, what are the
soul's
illnesses hidden beneath the gaudily-coloured carton of false chins and
false noses, under the hair of false beards, or the gleaming satin of
half
masks or the white sheets of hoods? To what drunkeness of hasish or
morphine,
to what forgetfulness of themselves, to what ambiguous and dangerous
adventures,
on the days of masked balls, do these lamentable and grotesque
processions
of dominos and penitents fling themselves?
They are
noisy, overflowing with movements and gestures, all of these masks, and
yet their gaity is sad; they are less alive than ghosts. Like phantoms
most of them walk covered from head to foot in long folds of cloth and
as with phantoms their faces are not seen. Why may there no be other
masks
beneath those wide camails, framing the fixed of velvet and silk? Why
may
there not be emptiness and hollowness beneath those enormous Pierrot
blouses
draped like shrouds in the bony angles of the tibias and humerus? The
humanity
which hides itself in order to mix with the crowd, is it not already
out
of nature and out of law? It is obviously doing wrong since it seeks to
deceive both hypothesis and instinct; sardonic and macabre, it fills
the
hesitant astonishment of the streets with pushing jesting and howling,
makes women tremble with delight, makes children have fits and men have
dirty thoughts, suddenly worried by the ambiguous sex of the disguises.
The mask
is the troubled and troubling side of the unknown, it is the smile of a
lie, it is the very soul of perversity which knows how to corrupt by
terrifying;
it is the spicy luxury of fear, the agonizing, delicious hazard of that
challenge to the sense curiosity: "Is she ugly? Is he handsome? Is he
young?
Isshe old?" It is gallantry seasoned with the macabre and spiced, who
knows?
With a drop of scandal or a taste of blood; for where will the
adventure
finish? In a lodging house or in the private hotel of a great
well-to-do,
or at the police station perhaps, for thieves also hide themselves to
commit
their terrible false faces the masks are as well of a death-trap as a
graveyard:
there may be a robber, a whore or a ghost.
Jean
Lorrain
My
feet
sank within the foamy folds
their gaping
wounds
intoxicated
by the sting
I
raised
my dagger to stab a woman's breast,
firmly
resolved that she was the sea king
Great
Vessels
transformed
into parasites
feeding
from my wounds
If
I could
annihiliate the "chain of causation"
decay could
relinquish defiled souls
VALOR
In
my last
hour
interpretations
of time
anxiously
awaited each grain of sand
crystalizing
foundations upon my shoulders
in an attempt
to reach my haggard eyes
I
was no
longer thinking of Heaven
At last
at one with the Earth
my tendrils
out-stretched, feeling tremors like words
she spoke
to my shrinking body
I
pleaded
love for the wind
the last
dance through my hair
the last
grain had reached the summit
and all
my songs and all my sorrows
are memories
in the belly of a vulture
I
no longer
think of Heaven
VALOR
(Dedicated
to Andre Breton)