The album 'Kaddish', by Towering Inferno in 1993 on Island Records.
"The most frightening record I've ever heard"
Brian Eno
Towering Inferno's Kaddish is a screaming nightmare of an album. At once terrifying and beautifully frail, its central theme is the persecution of the Eastern European Jews by Hitler's Nazi regime.
Not subject matter to be taken lightly.
With primary vocal performances by singer Márta Sebestyén and poet Endre Szkárosi, the album variously uses English, Hebrew, Hungarian and Latin, with the occasional bit of German, and draws heavily on traditional mourning and funereal songs and prayers from the Hungarian Jewish cultures, including the mourner's Kaddish that gives the album its title.
The packaging of the album is perhaps the most spectacular I've ever seen. The traditional CD jewel case and sleeve notes with their cemetery photographs are supplemented by a black card outer covering, unadorned but for the title and artist picked out in silver on the front and sides. The back covering incorporates a small window, and behind this there are a selection of cards with different coloured and textured backgrounds, and transparent cells printed with black images, including a soldier, the text of The Rose (see below) and a Star of David; by combining these, you can compose any one of hundreds of images to appear in the rear window.
Part I
The Rose
A simple slow melody on a lonely flute accompanies Márta's reading of a poem which recurs throughout the album.
This round world as it collapses on me
This round world as it collapses on me
The wind blows through me
The wind blows through me
The old and the new
And here and far away
Familiar and unknown
And you and everything
Love of the universe
This sky will cover you as you fall down
This sky will cover you as you fall down
The track closes with a traditional Hungarian song, and a reading from a 13th century funeral oration.
Prayer
Instrumental. Grinding, screeching industrial sounds and hammer-on-metal percussion.
Instrumental. Violins, clarinet and piano, a seemingly despondent melody that almost bursts with hope at some points.
4 by 2
Upbeat and staccato piano with synth strings. Growing unease, and sudden panic to swelling violins.
Taunting and screaming, Hungarian language song about King Edward's inhumane actions against Welsh rebels. A speeded-up warlike drumbeat, with snippets of vocals looped and distorted, building to a frenzied crescendo.
Memory
Possibly the most weird-ass language track track on the album, its pastoral imagery and its theme of exile are highlighted rather than obfuscated by the fact that its not in an actual spoken language. Its in reverse English.
Skcart eht pmuj
tniat gnirps
reed eht
kcor lager
dels a
erised dna
yromem
Part II
Not Me
English language but with a great distance to it; the vocals filtered through telephone.
You are in the free country
Reverse Field
Backwards, three steps...
The man who prays must step back three steps...
This is the sign of honour.
Guitar and energetic arhythmic drums.
Backwards, three steps...
Occupation
Oppressive drums and a freeform jazz saxophone solo, with sample of Hitler declaiming "Vernichtung der jüdischen Rasse in Europa!", and cantor in Hebrew "Blessed is the Lord".
Sto Mondo Rotondo
The poem from The Rose, Latin translation. Swelling choral backing adds to a distinct 'church' atmosphere, hilighting the close theological relationship between Christian and Jewish faiths.
Organ Loop
Márta reads a Hungarian translation of The Rose, to predictable organ accompaniment.
Part III
Toll (I)
Scary rhythms and edgy synthesisers with distorted vocals.
Toll (II)
More of the same, with Hungarian and Hebrew funereal chants.
The Ruin
Almost becomes an interlude: desultory viola and piano dominate this two minute piece. It's slow and reflective; it sounds like the aftermath of the previous two tracks.
Juden
Segue with awkward and staccato synthesised violins, in my mind associates with footage of Jewish refugees arriving in America, with samples of Hitler once again pronouncing "Vernichtung der jüdischen Rasse in Europa!"
Pogrom
Crazy percussion sounding like stamping of feet and thumping of chests, and limbs.
They received us with open arms
This will be the haven
You are in the Free Country
Pogrom
Partisans
From the distance, men's voices march in; chanting the text of Not Me, but in Hungarian, interrupted by military drumbeats and an authoritarian voice:
You cannot leave this city!
Even if you refuse
to set foot in its soil
remember this
when you go round the forest
and make falcons soar to the sky
they won't seek
your hooded hand any more.
You cannot leave this city!
Part IV
Modern Times
Introducing the theme for this section of the work, Modern Times establishes an air of progress and remembrance. An industrious and modern electronic drumbeat emerges from the wake of part III, with synthesisers and occasional electric guitar bringing images of modern day Manhattan in fast-forward sunrise.
The Rose (II)
A reprise of the traditional song from The Rose of Part 1. In the context it sounds more like ceremony than before, cleaner and better dressed, more formal.
The Bell
A traditional Bulgarian song, set to dramatic synth with tolling of bells and blowing of mournful horns.
I lay a beautiful coloured carpet
in front of you
but you saddle up your horse
and i can see you want to go away.
Yes, I'm going away, but I'm leaving you
with two Mothers, yours and mine.
God damn your Mother, and my Mother too
because I'd rather be with you here
on the rug.
Kaddish
The Mourner's Kaddish, read in dramatic cantor bass to wind gusts, violin and synthesisers. It's spine chilling. It's haunting. It speaks only of peace, not of hope.
The Weaver
Recovery. After the Kaddish, life goes on in spite of what preceded. A traditional Cretan song:
If I'd known you were alone
I would have stopped sometimes while passing
To sing you something sweet
And all day your treadle clicks
While you weave your linen
And keep me waiting.
A thousand and two things you weave
To impress the village men
And all day your treadle clicks
While you weave your linen
Ignoring me in my impatience.