Ghost dances and Alchemy!

In 1985 right after quitting The Sisters of Mercy, Gary Marx joined forces with Anne-Marie from Skeletal Family and formed, short lived Ghost Dance as every decent old goth on the planet knows...
Their third release was "The Grip of Love" on Karbon Records 31 October 1986 (hey that's Halloween and... my B-day!)
The 12" version of this release was adorned with  this sleeve:

The illustration used on it depicts an hermaphrodite and was  the cover of a famous 14th century publication, now entitled Aurora Consurgens. 

Aurora Consurgens is an illuminated manuscript of the 15th century which can now be found in the Zürich Zentralbibliothek.

The Aurora Consurgens is one of the earliest emblematic alchemical manuscripts. It is dated to the early 1400's. It has become well known for its thirty-eight miniatures in watercolour, a strange series of engaging allegorical images all representations of alchemical elements depicted in human or animal form, which the contemporary mind sees as surrealistic and enigmatic. In fact it was a sort of code addressed to mystics e.g. mercury is depicted as a serpent; gold as the sun, silver as the moon etc. 

The work became known towards the end of the 20th century through the work of a Jungian psychologist, Marie-Louise von Franz, who issued an edition of it which was translated into English as Aurora Consurgens : a document attributed to Thomas Aquinas on the problem of opposites in alchemy (now attributed to a writer called the "Pseudo-Aquinas"  if you care...)

Except for "our" Ghost Dance, brazilian symphonic power metal act ANGRA released in 2006 a cd entitled Aurora Consurgens...

That's all for now my little alchemists!

Stay tuned for more Goth-an-Roll!

Gary Marx is underrated!

Ok, I don't know how many of you knew this, but I just recently heard these excellent tracks and got aware of the following fact:


"Nearly 13 years after first coming into being Nineteen Ninety Five and Nowhere receives its first official release on the French independent label D-monic. 
  Recently completed and re-mastered the new 10 track album features songs originally written in 1995 by The Sisters of Mercy co-founder Gary Marx at the invitation of Sisters’ supremo Andrew Eldritch. The material was intended to represent the pair’s first collaboration since the landmark Sisters’ album ‘First and Last and Always’ of 1984, but the notoriously wilful singer pulled out of the project without uttering a single word.
  The backing tracks went unheard until relatively recently when Marx, convinced of the material’s obvious strength, decided to finish the songs himself, writing lyrics and adding his own distinctive vocals. The response on hearing the results among the Sisters fan-base was immediate and the clamour for the tracks prompted him to make 7 of the songs available via the internet.
  Despite continual pressure to make the songs more widely available Marx had refused to be drawn until the approach of the Paris based label. Now with all 10 songs included for the first time the album has been re-mastered and re-packaged and is due for release on December 1st 2007.
  Despite (or perhaps because of ) the twisted path the songs have had to walk these long years, the album works as much more than a mere taste of what might have been – it serves as ample reminder of Marx’s undoubted ability as a writer and guitarist and is essential listening for anyone who has followed his career to date or for newcomers looking for an introduction to his work."

The above excerpt was taken by the French label, D-Monic's website.

I recommend you listen to this album letting your imagination bring in Andrew's voice...

Poor guy, what an opportunity he missed...

Tune in...