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‘A Giant’ is the fruit of twelve years’ work. For that is how long the serpentine paths of rock‘n’roll and scholarship have taken to reconcile themselves on this double-CD. Welbourn Tekh and I have been discussing its possibilities since we first met in the mid-90s - both of us explorers of the megalithic and the prehistoric, and both of us gnostics with little regard for others who had chosen to make up their minds without ‘going there’. For we were Lethbridgean in our methods, forged in the hearthen fire that Colin Wilson had inadvertently set at his home in Goranhaven, Cornwall, during the writing of his more-than-epic ‘Mysteries’. And when I quoted TC-Lethbridge on my ‘Jehovahkill’ album of 1992CE, Welbourn Tekh sat up and took notice and searched me out. Indeed, ‘Jehovahkill’ it was that probably first set this whole thing rolling, for I had met that incendiary guitarist Doggen at the legendary Riot House: ie the Hyatt Hotel on Sunset Strip, Los Angeles, and there asked him to contribute a speed-metal guitar solo to ‘Jehovahkill’. For several years afterwards, Doggen and I attempted to create a rock‘n’roll group as a vehicle for TC-Lethbridge’s ideas, but none of our co-conspirators could ‘stay on the programme’. Moreover, the group’s manager and one-time singer eventually began to write love songs and made off with the band’s tape store! Unlucky! Or rather... not. For it was at this juncture in the narrative that the white lord Welbourn Tekh appeared with news of his already-written Lethbridge essays and the ability to play post-punk bass guitar. On September 11th, 2001CE, as the Two Towers burned, Welbourn and I proceeded to Goran Haven for a planning meeting with his friend (and one of my heroes) Colin Wilson. The fruits of those conversations, along with many rigorous recording sessions by Tekh, Doggen and their esteemed cohort Kevlar, has made this one of the finest and most uncompromising rock‘n’roll debuts ever. Ensembles rarely summon up an entirely new sound from the depths of the cultural repositories they have chosen to trawl. But then, this is a rare ensemble. I need say no more except... Bring it on! Julian Cope, Yatesbury, Wessex - 7th September 2003CE |
