This has been the name of David Tibet's record label since 1988. "Durtro" is an Anglicized version of the Tibetan word for cemetery or burial: dur khrod. A typical ascetic practice among Tibetan Buddhists is "sitting in a charnel ground" -- dur-khrod-pa in Tibetan -- as a way of coming to terms with the transience of all things. The esoteric connotations of the word have to do with the nexus between this world and the next.

David Tibet is the vocalist and primary imagination behind the band Current 93, and pretty much every Current 93 release for the past fifteen years has been given a Durtro catalogue number. Most of these releases were distributed by World Serpent, the notorious record distributor that also released work by Death in June, Sol Invictus, Nurse With Wound, Coil, and other likeminded artists.

David Tibet never intended for Current 93 to be the only band represented on Durtro. From the very beginning of his career, he would press records by artists he admired in the interest of gaining for them a wider audience. His tastes range from folk to psychedelic to torch to outsider music of various stripes: Shirley Collins, Tiny Tim, Antony and the Johnsons, Baby Dee, Bill Fay, Simon Finn, Six Organs of Admittance, and Sveinbjörn Beinteinsson are just some of the artists who have released material through Durtro.

After the demise of World Serpent Distribution in August of 2004, Current 93 started distributing their records themselves under the name Durtro-Jnana -- an approach that Death in June and Coil were already exploring when WSD first began experiencing financial problems a couple of years earlier. Jnana is a Sanskrit word that means "knowledge"; it's actually cognate with the English word "knowledge" and the Greek word "gnosis."

Recently, David Tibet has made connections with Revolver U.S.A. and has already released a handful of records through them. Revolver has been a fixture on the alternative music scene for many years, having served as a distributor for Foetus, Swans, Sonic Youth, and dozens of others. Current 93 albums should therefore be much easier to find in North America (and possibly even in the U.K.!) than they ever were under World Serpent.

Before 1988, Current 93's label was called Maldoror, named after the foul and violent hero of a novel written by Le Comte de Lautréamont in 1869.