From England to the endlessly ethereal plains of elemental existence, Michael Cashmore, composer, multi-disciplinary musician, and occultist, has worked with artists such as Marc Almond, Nick Cave, Bill Fay, Anohni, and, of course, David Tibet, and Current 93. His sonically sophisticated journey began in the early to mid-1980s with early works such as “Nature and Organisation” and a cerebral introduction into 8mm film that poetically placed him in good grace within his creative community. Influenced by the iconic Throbbing Gristle, Psychic T.V., and the transcendental world of the late Genesis P-Orridge, with who Cashmore had befriended in later years, it wouldn’t be till the following decade that the young musician joined yet another fundamental favorite, Current 93. A non-planetary reality built on prolifically poetic politics, observations on the occult, and other various esoteric elements, Cashmore became the band’s main composer during his iconic involvement and has since secured himself into feverish fibers of underground music universalism.

What was your childhood like growing up in England? When did you first begin to fall in love with music and was this something relevant around your household growing up? Who were some of your earliest influences? When and where did you see your first concert and when did it dawn on you that you wanted to be a musician?

My childhood was normal for someone raised in a working-class family in England in the early 1960s and 70s. My mom was working as a cleaner, and my dad was in a factory, they always made sure that we had enough to eat, and they took me and my brother Kevin on holidays every year, often to Wales, where I have very vague but fond memories. At the back of our house were my school's playing fields, and my brother would jump across the fence and play football during the summer holidays. We would play until it was dark, and I would see sacred swallows in black silhouettes against the dark blue summer skies, something that I have always remembered. My early musical education came mainly from a T.V. program called Top of the Pops. It exposed me to many various genres of music, but my first musical epiphany was seeing David Bowie perform “Starman” in 1972. It was like seeing someone from a different planet, especially as the UK was so bleak in those days. Later came Disco music, but in my early teens, punk happened, and suddenly, I learned about rebellion and revolution, something that shaped the rest of my life. I became obsessed with punk, The Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Stranglers, and many other bands that reflected my passions. When punk died, I began searching for something more subversive. With no Internet, everything was by word of mouth, I discovered Psychic T.V., Throbbing Gristle, Coil, and Current 93, changing my life forever. I began to recognize the true power of music, its primordial roots, and the Incredible power that it possesses; this was my second musical epiphany. I was also listening to a lot of rock music at the time that Influenced my guitar playing, particularly the acoustic pieces from Welsh heavy rock band Budgie and Canadian prog-rock band Rush, which introduced me to finger-picking guitar. The first concert I ever saw I can't remember, maybe Budgie or The Stranglers in the late 70s in Birmingham or Walsall, England.

Experimenting with analog mediums such as film, tape, and acoustic instruments in the early days, what was it about these elements of sound and texture that fascinated you the most? Before joining Current 93, you formed Nature and Organisation in the mid-80s. Tell me about this project that has spanned off and on since the mid-80s.

What fascinated me the most were the various elements that could be combined to enhance the intensity I wanted to express. I Formed one of my early projects, “Nature and Organisation,” in 1985. I had been experimenting with music for quite a few years before, releasing odd tracks on cassette compilations, being active in the mail art scene, and taking my first steps in creating super 8mm films. I must have made some form of recognition as a German record label. Cthulhu Records asked me to release a 7" single with them in 1986, and I sent a letter and cassette to David Tibet and asked him about collaborating on this single. This was my first contact with him. He sent a letter with his phone number and asked me to call him. I was extremely shy at those days, but I called him and asked if he would be interested in collaborating on this single with me, and he said yes, after we had spoken, I was so excited that I jumped in the air and cut my head open on a low hanging light, blood was streaming down my face, but I didn't care. We never released the track until many years later on a Current 93 compilation called “Emblems,” the track being “Hooves.”

How did joining Current 93 and connecting with David Tibet come about in ‘90, one of the most productive years for the band? When and where did you guys first get together to rehearse and flesh out ideas of what this new version of the group would eventually become? The band’s prolificacy is inspiring and almost unnerving! What were those early days in the band like for you upon joining and staking on being the band’s sole writer?

I joined C93 in 1990 because they were booked to play a concert in Amiens, France 1990, Douglas P. wasn’t able to play, so I took his place, and then I became a full-time member and began work writing “Thunder Perfect Mind” with David. David and I share a vague, unspoken vision and a feeling, although we are from very different backgrounds, this is how our work complements each other: his poetry and my music. For example, when we recorded “Thunder Perfect Mind” together, I traveled from Birmingham to London, where we spent the evening working on ideas. Tibet would give me a text on paper, and I would play a piece of music that I thought fit in the end, we had so many pages of David’s lyrics on the floor which I'd scribbled notes upon so that we could remember them the next day. “Thunder Perfect Mind” was an album written with pure intuition, and the album was mostly put together in the evening before we went into the studio, Topic Studios in London, I believe. Well, I was the sole writer of the music for Current 93 at the time. I would take care of the music, but Steven Stapleton added the experimental sounds over my music, and Joolie Wood often added melodies using violin and recorders. With David's lyrics and voice, this was the main line-up for a few years.

Throughout your career, you’ve worked with many influential artists like Nick Cave, Marc Almond of Soft Cell and so many others. What inspires and excites me the most about your incredible career in music and simply how much you’ve done over the three decades? What inspires you the most and keeps you motivated to keep creating all these years?

I feel lucky to have worked with David Tibet, which allowed me to work with so many incredible artists over the years, Nick Cave and Marc Almond, as you say, but also with the wonderful Bill Fay, possibly one of the most wonderful and compassionate people I have ever worked with, it was also an incredible honor for me to work with legendary music produced Tony Visconti who wrote an eight-string arrangement for a song I wrote with Marc Almond called "The Death Of A Dandy" about a friend of mine and Marc's called Sebastian Horsley. And, of course, I also worked with the wonderful Anohni (formerly Antony of Antony and the Johnsons later), and we released an ep called "The Snow Abides.” She also guested on one of my solo albums, “The Night Has Rushed In," on the title track with lyrics written by David Tibet, one of my greatest works. "The Snow Abides" is a full-length album featuring five tracks with David Tibet on vocals and lyrics that I wrote. I was so unconfident then that only the songs featuring vocals by Anohni and lyrics by David were later released. Last year, in December, the full version of this album was finally released as a double vinyl album for the first time. I was also fortunate to work with Ian Reed on a couple of Fire & Ice albums and Douglas P. of Death In June on a piece of music I wrote for him on the album "But, What Happens When The Symbols Shatter?" for the song "Giddy Edge of Light," a piece of music that I dreamed of. Working with Little Annie, who appeared on one of my solo albums, was another dream for me. I was so fortunate to work with such an Inspiring and unique individual called Eglé Tamulyté-Shalmira, who graced me with her incredible voice and visions, something I will always be so grateful for. She’s one of the most incredible people that I have ever met. What Inspires me the most is the way that music can unite people, connect us as one humanity, and the ways that music can change society for the better.

What have you been up to recently? Are any new projects/tours, etc. in the works? Is there anything else you would like to share further with the readers?

Several years ago, I formed a movement to accompany my music called The Hidden Throne 434, which is about the transformation of my physical consciousness. It's about waking up from the endless distractions of physical consciousness, reaching your true potential as an Individual, and turning suffering into something positive, something that my dear friend Genesis P-Orridge kindly endorsed and encouraged me with. I published a book called “Transformation Through Love” that outlines the process of my path of self-transformation, which I hope will encourage others to follow their paths. I have never stopped working with music or transforming myself. I have many unreleased works that I am trying to release right now, and I have composed four symphonies that I hope to release one day, I plan to compose at least fifteen before I pass on into the next realm of consciousness. I have also been experimenting with sacred audio frequencies to expand physical consciousness by using overstimulation of consciousness by increasing the ability of neural pathways to endure such Intensity and, therefore, expanding physical consciousness in some way. This method involves much suffering for such small results that I have abandoned these experiments, at least for now. Music can change lives as it unites diversity. Gender doesn't matter, neither does religion and such superficial things, for there is only one divine love, and we are all one. Summer skies are endless. As someone no longer young, I enjoy watching videos of young people dancing, drinking together, and having fun with friends, as it reminds me of my youth. But now that I am older, somehow those things don't exist for me anymore, maybe because of my eccentricity, but I don't know. It's just the way that life is. But still, I celebrate Life so much for all of its complexities, the ways the past is so connected to the present, and the extraordinary gift of physical consciousness. So I dance alone every evening, and it gives me so much pleasure, I drink and smoke alone, but still, I feel so much inspiration and joy in my heart that my days are all worthwhile, no matter how difficult they may seem. But each weekday, I am conscious about going to work the next day. I sleep early if I am blessed by sleep if my mind isn't too restless, and I work a dead-end job knowing that my evenings will at least be enjoyable. On weekend evenings, I work on creating music that perhaps no one will ever hear, but this is not my concern as this is what gives purpose to my life, it always has and always will, and for this, I feel so blessed and grateful.

“Music can change lives as it unites diversity. Gender doesn’t matter, neither does religion and such superficial things, for there is only one divine love, and we are all one. Summer skies are endless.”

— Cashmore

Some regard me as a cult musician because of things that I have created in my past, which humbles me so much as it was something that I never intended to happen. Somehow, it just did by being true to myself and my creativity, which brings me a lot of comfort. In my youth, I saw so many people that I wanted to be, like Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Joe Strummer, Sid Vicious, Jean-Jacques Burnel, David Bowie, of course, and so many others, Iggy Pop because of their incredible energy and dedication to their Individuality, not forgetting my dear friend Genesis P-Orridge too and David Tibet, Marc Almond, Bill Fay, and Anohni. I admire their courage in being so Individual that it Inspired me to become like them, I want to be remembered in the same way that they will be, even though this may be just a dream. I have lived as an eccentric non-conformist without money or recognition being my motivation. I will always express my vision of a compassionate, kind, and understanding world, no matter how futile this may be. And this I will until the final floor, number 434, opens, and I will return to the eternal energy of divine love forever. Will our memories be repeated or forever lost in the overload of stimuli that we experience, will they burn through time as endless information in which we are all remembered as timeless entities, our DNA replicated through generations or deleted through time for divine love is endless? Home is The final destination; it is the loss of life but the attainment of immortality, the realm of no pain and suffering, the garden and home where all is clarity, serenity, and contentment. We will wake up in summer sunlight, the birds in the trees will sing songs of joy, and the seas will be full of life as will the land, forests will be endless green, and the grass under our feet as It was when we were Innocent children.

The skies will communicate with our DNA and create new worlds. Music is so powerful; it doesn't belong to religion but to us all and our ancestors. Its connection to each other and its communication is essential; it defies time Itself, and it unites and creates true bonds of divine love that last eternally. Divine love is Like an incredible energy that can shelter us against all harm; it brings us warmth to protect us from the cold, it gives us the strength to never give up when we feel as if all is lost, and the Inspiration that all is possible, for divine love is in itself the basis of mysticism. It reminds us of our pure, innocent physical consciousness when we were all young and that we should carry this endless flame as a beacon of light into the infinite, dark universe for eternity. Each star is the name of everyone that ever existed, and every planet is where they are buried in Immortality. Every night before I sleep, I see rows of dead bodies on my window sill falling like rain onto the carpet below like bloody, pink water as memories that I no longer remember form dreams of the future dead and buried beneath the night sky. And I close the curtains before I sleep and dream of hope without reality. We cannot hold a flame; only a flame can't hold us, holding a rose will pierce our flesh, only a rose can hold us. We cannot hold the sun, but we can hold the moon as we can look at the consequences of what we do by holding up a mirror to see our true selves. Is it the wind that makes candles flicker or the dead released from death? All are dying, so let's celebrate the arrival of new life, no revelation should be secret. May all crowns burn in the flames of reality, the candle of true light never dies.

Life is about leaving bare footprints that no one else has ever left; it's about leaving fingerprints of ourselves in other people's physical consciousness, and this is how we can still carry on in the physical world once we have walked through the door 434 in the physical consciousness of those who remember us, it's as if we are all immortal. Mysticism is the purest expression of divine Love, the expression of joy manifested in truth, the unconditional love of the incredible miracle of the mystery of physical and cosmic consciousness. This is the path of retaining the beauty of both humanity and nature simultaneously. It is written in our DNA and passed from generation to generation as the written word and intuition as a sacred blueprint that was written on cave walls by our ancestors for us to Interpret the most sacred of codes. Divine love nourishes all sacred hearts and the place where we face ourselves in the mirror and dance our darkness away. It's what we have all been waiting for all of our lives; we are not lost, for we are all golden children of the future. We’ve got to hold on to it forever without control where all our senses are switched off. “The Hidden Throne” is about rejecting the existing blueprints of conditioned existence and conformity in the way it rejects change. Defiant individuality is the key to creating new, bold, and exciting changes. The severity of change is a sword within a shield forever. Let your sacred heart beak and become free as door 434 only opens once, and its Intensity is as endless as the sun Itself burning through both time and memories. The most incredible experience is death and the rebirth of divine love. The belief in mysticism is that all doors are open, and all wounds will be closed. This is an illusion because mysticism is the ultimate state of open-mindedness and transformation through love. Sending much Love to everyone, and thank you for taking your precious time to read this.

Michael Cashmore for The Hidden Throne 434

The Michael Cashmore Interview

From The Vault - Patrick Cockett :: These Trails Interivew