Coil

In strict terms, 2019’s The Gay Man’s Guide To Safer Sex + 2 is a truly posthumous Coil release some years after both John Balance and Peter Christopherson had died, with only Danny Hyde as a surviving participant from the sessions. Given the convoluted nature of Coil’s archives, one can be forgiven for skepticism as to how canonical this should be considered. But its origins still make it one of Coil’s most striking and moving efforts, being the soundtrack to a 1992 UK video film that was at once a necessary call to action at the height of AIDS’s pre-therapy destruction and a forthright and uncompromising celebration of male homosexuality. The ‘+2’ of the title refers to two ringers from Stolen and Contaminated Songs, “Nasa-Arab” and “Omlagus Garflungiloops,” the bases of the actual soundtrack cuts “Nasa-Arab 2” and “Exploding Frogs.” The remaining cuts are two variations of the main theme for the film, easily some of the most straightforwardly sensuous dance music they ever created, with echoed vocal snippets, steady beats and subtle hints of their exploratory trippiness setting an appropriately erotic atmosphere.

While 2000’s Constant Shallowness Leads To Evil could on the face of it be a complement to that year’s Queens Of The Circulating Library – both were initially released by Coil in CD clamshell cases without any cover art – it provides a distinct contrast in turn, exchanging the one-long-track flow of Queens for something far more on edge. While not totally lacking the generally calmer and quieter music the John Balance/Peter Christopherson/Thighpaulsandra team had been making in recent years – the opening minimal drone crawl of “Higher Beings Command” shows that much – there’s much more fierce noise in general, with the stretch from “Beige” to “Free Base Chakra” essentially being a three-part extensive howl of unsettling, sometimes cyclical electronics. This in turn leads into the final song “Tunnel of Goats,” an even more intense improvisation, Balance’s voice interspersed briefly in the overall mayhem. A guest from their live touring ensemble, Tom Edwards, brings his marimba work to “I Am The Green Child,” notable as well for Balance’s heavily treated and stretched out vocal contributions.

In many key ways Coil’s path over the years was far less a conventional album-plus-singles approach and more of a continuing process in which material emerged as it did that documented, sometimes in fragmented fashion, their work and experimentation with compositions and songs as they chose. The first of many such collections they released, 1987’s Gold Is The Metal (With The Broadest Shoulders), looked at outtakes from sessions including Scatology, Horse Rotorvator and their hoped-for Hellraiser soundtrack, plus planned single and further album efforts. A good example of the latter is “Paradisiac,” a slow grind stomp originally intended for an ultimately unfinished predecessor of Love’s Secret Domain. If by default it’s unfocused, their ear in this particular era for found sound approaches, electronic beat and sample experiments and twisting lyrical language for their own purposes is fully on display, from the Thai boxing match audience sample underscoring the focused melody and rhythm of “Thump” to having Peter Christopherson deliver a rare lead vocal on “Boy In A Briefcase.”

The blend of mysticism and sociopolitics that makes up Coil’s second album, 1986’s Horse Rotorvator, renders it one of that decade’s most memorable and uneasily powerful cultural efforts, its title from a John Balance dream about apocalypse, its cover art a photo of a location of a noted IRA bombing, its subject matter including the 1970s political murder of radical gay Italian filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini. With Stephen Thrower now formally part of the band with Balance and Peter Christopherson, further assisted by numerous guests new and returning, including JG Thirlwell and Marc Almond, the trio readily built on the reach of their earlier work to create a kaleidoscopic swirl of surreal poetry, sonic chaos, stomping beats and haunting, beautiful fragility. Balance’s sometimes tense, sometimes murmured, sometimes serenely cool pronouncements feel like a series of invocations of a world bubbling beneath a glossy surface. One of the more remarkable moments comes from another in their series of striking cover versions: Leonard Cohen’s “Who By Fire,” Almond’s wordless backing vocals a lovely touch.

Underground UK psych musician Gary Ramon started recording and releasing work around the same time as Coil fired up, with about as much interest in mainstream success and playing the industry game as the group did. So perhaps little surprise that their similar mutual interests in work and in mind-expanding sonics resulted in a one-off album as part of a multi-artist effort overseen by Ramon called the Drug series, released in two separate versions by Ramon and by Coil between 1999 and 2000: the amazingly titled Astral Disaster. Even more notably, this was the first full album released by Coil under that name since 1994’s The Angelic Conversation, helping to signal a return to that core identity for the next few years. The continuing trio of John Balance, Peter Christopherson and Drew McDowall were formally joined by Thighpaulsandra, each on a variety of electronic instruments, with Ramon guesting briefly on guitar. The songs are divided between intriguing improvisations and shorter compositions, while Balance, though not taking a major voice role overall, delivers his spare words with a reflective, focused air.

While Coil’s alternate identity as ELpH, used to distinguish compositions and sonic creation that had emerged indirectly or by the malfunctioning of their equipment, had already released some songs before 1995’s Worship The Glitch, the album in question was the sole full length effort by said version of the wider group, at this point consisting of core members John Balance and Peter Christopherson as well as newer member Drew McDowall. While not the foundation of the avant-garde genre of glitch music as such, Worship The Glitch absolutely helped popularize both the term and the perception of what it could encompass, as treated sonic elements and patterns emerge and evolve, often with a sense of vast background space. Mostly instrumental, its sixteen selections range from short near-fragments to lengthier pieces, including a non-sequential three part effort called “The Halliwell Hammers,” referencing the tragic killing of playwright Joe Orton by his partner Kenneth Halliwell. There’s also an amazing cover: “Mono,” a heavily treated guitar variation on Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots Were Made For Walkin’.”

Originally released in 2002 and then rereleased by Peter Christopherson in 2006 with two noisier extra tracks after Jhonn Balance’s passing, The Remote Viewer finds a quintet lineup of Coil – Ossian Brown, Cliff Stapleton and Mike York are the further players – continuing to explore an instrumental, often meditative approach familiar from various recent efforts of theirs. That said, from the start it’s also distinctly busier and fuller sounding than studio Coil work in this vein had been in some time, partially reflecting the live work that had been more common for them by that point, but just as clearly part of the group’s drive to never exactly quite remain in the same place for long. The interplay of melodies and gentle rhythms on the opening “Remote Viewing 1” very much has the air of entering some kind of celebratory if mysterious ceremony – a tinge of Orientalism perhaps at play – which sets the tone for the two further songs on the original release, with “Remote Viewing 2” aiming for a quirkier, quiet hyperactivity and “Remote Viewing 3” creating a similar but not exact feeling like the first track, mystic and entrancing.

Released a little over a year after the tragic death of Jhonn Balance, 2005’s The Ape Of Naples serves as a hail and farewell to Balance and to Coil by Peter Christopherson, drawing on sessions dating back to the never-completed Backwards album from the 1990s as well as various compositions drawn from live performances in more recent years. (Further songs included on an initial vinyl release, as well as others, were released in 2008 as a Coil album by Christopherson as The New Backwards.) While serving more as tribute and appreciation from one half of the partnership than as a true Coil album by terrible default, it succeeds at exactly that, capturing the blend of seemingly ancient and shockingly modern, lyrically and musically, in the kind of uncategorizable blend that defined the group. Its final track “Going Up” perhaps captures that beautiful strange synthesis of Coil best, including Balance sampled from their final live performance with the question “Are you ready to go now?” while singer/choreographer Francois Testory interprets the theme song of the classic UK sitcom Are You Being Served?

While 2004’s Black Antlers was not the last formal release by Coil before Jhonn Balance’s death – the live album …And The Ambulance Died In His Arms, which appeared the following year, had already been planned and prepared by him and Peter Christopherson – it was the last (mostly) studio effort completed by them together. Either in its original CDr form or in the 2006 rerelease by Christopherson with one track substitution and three further songs, it was an unplanned, unasked-for conclusion for a remarkable partnership. With the core duo assisted by Thighpaulsandra and live ensemble members Tom Edwards, Cliff Stapleton and Mike York, the album showcases a relatively more straightforward song approach than they’d done recently due to its focus on compilation tracks, rerecordings and a live performance cut. Balance’s vocals were more in evidence throughout the album, whether sung and spoken, including the two-part “Sex With Sun Ra.” Two covers further flesh things out, the folk standard (via Current 93) “All The Pretty Little Horses” and Bam Bam’s acid house track “Where’s Your Child?” 

The first formal album by Coil announced its intentions clearly not merely by its title but by art in various editions and rereleases with an emphasis on buttocks and anuses. 1984’s Scatology was never meant to be easy listening as such, especially its lyrical and numerous subcultural themes, perhaps most memorably in the droning dark fantasia of “The Sewage Worker’s Birthday Party.” But in its sprawling experimentation, from aggressive noise and rhythms to unsettling near silence, it also showed that Coil wasn’t interested in simply pursuing one sole path, with the opening rhythmic loops of sampling in “Ubu Noir” slamming into the raging stomp of “Panic,” John Balance’s raspy vocals over a collaborative bed from both Peter Christopherson and album coproducer JG Thirlwell. Notable further appearances come from future member Stephen Thrower on clarinet on two songs, including the moody contemplation of “At The Heart Of It All,” Balance’s calm piano improvisation a further demonstration of Coil’s reach, and an eerie lead vocal turn on “Tenderness of Wolves” from the Virgin Prunes’s Gavin Friday.

Beginning in spring 1998, Coil released a series of four EPs for that and each season that followed into 1999, themed specifically around the solstice and equinox moments on the overall solar calendar, a combination of the mystic and scientific. In 2002, the four were compiled and formally released as Moon’s Milk (In Four Phases), presenting a striking overview of both the entire project as well as Coil’s evolving return to releasing work underneath that name. John Balance, Peter Christopherson and Drew McDowall again remained the core, with guests including Thighpaulsandra, William Breeze on electric viola and Rose McDowall. With a general theme of the year’s progression at play in the titles, from “Summer Substructures” to “Christmas Now Is Drawing Near,” the overall effect of Moon’s Milk is of an extended, undefinable trip of the best sort as various sonic and vocal elements intertwine, ranging from contemplative flow to squirrelly loops to sudden sonic chaos. Balance’s own vocal appearances range from the seemingly quotidian to the deeply cryptic, pitched somewhere between ritual and exploration.

2000’s Queens Of The Circulating Library, first released on the date of a live performance later released as Coil Presents Time Machines, was a truly unique album in the entire oeuvre of Coil for one simple reason: Peter Christopherson did not appear on it. Instead, the core duo here was John Balance and fairly recently joined member Thighpaulsandra, along with the latter’s mother Dorothy Lewis providing readings of Balance’s lyrics. Consisting of the sole title track, the nearly fifty-minute composition is in general line with the more drone/near-ambient work of the band at that time of the millennium’s turn, beginning with a slowly repeating loop of sound that is further accentuated and worked against by various interspersions of samples and other elements as a roiling undercurrent. It never quite overtakes the main loop but keeps things from simply being a slow repeat. Lewis’s lyrical readings provide a remarkable contrast to what Balance would likely have brought then, her introductory and self-consciously dramatic (and effectively so) interjections slathered in echo, helping set the cryptic mood for what follows.

While not formally released by Coil until 1994, the year of filmmaker Derek Jarman’s death, The Angelic Conversation was recorded by the John Balance/Peter Christopherson/Stephen Thrower incarnation of the group in 1985 for Jarman’s film of the same title, a meditation on homosexual desire and mysterious imagery. Whether in its original soundtrack form including Shakespeare sonnet recitations by Judi Dench or in a separate instrumental-only variation released in later years, it’s a remarkable example of how Coil, seemingly at that moment in time focused on clattering stomps and ecstatic invocations on albums like Scatology and Horse Rotorvator, could also easily concentrate on subtler but no less involving sonic moods. Sound samples from the film mixed with drone snippets, varied echoed percussion and ringing bells, and a general air of floating mystery, accentuated by further orchestral and choral elements. Song titles such as “Angelic Stations” and “Enochian Calling” demonstrate Balance’s imaginative lodestones in effect alongside Jarman’s own imaginative, powerfully erotic visions.

Coil’s continuing mid-1990s activity operating under different identities to explore approaches resulted in a striking followup to ELpH’s Worship the Glitch with a new name, Black Light District, and the one album under that guise, 1996’s A Thousand Lights In a Darkened Room, which once again features the John Balance/Peter Christopherson/Drew McDowall trio at work together. Stepping away from Worship’s approach, A Thousand Lights tends to feature longer and more formally organized compositions, resembling little so much as the kind of electronic work then familiar from Warp Records acts such as the Aphex Twin’s more experimental side. Hints of Coil’s contemporary remix work for acts like Nine Inch Nails can be found as well, but ultimately it all sounds like its own unique beast. Squirrelly and strange beats and melodies intertwine, ominous drones emerge over atypical-sounding rhythm loops that vary in volume, and an air of at once calm and unnerving sonics dominates. Balance appears under a variety of pseudonyms throughout, making it an even more cryptically engaging experience.

When after various archival, soundtrack and shorter releases Coil put out a full followup to 1986’s Horse Rotorvator, they did so with a leap forward even from that already fascinating album. 1991’s Love’s Secret Domain took all the elements the continuing trio of John Balance, Peter Christopherson and Stephen Thrower had already established in that stretch of time, from occult invocations to disruptive rhythms to wry humor, and created swirling, playful, creepy and (particularly in its use of sampling) early 90s dance-friendly but rarely conventional dance songs as such. Its two singles, “The Snow” and “Windowpane,” are the most dancefloor-ready but still far from typical sonically. With Balance occasionally singing and guest vocals by Annie Anxiety – a brilliant lead turn on “Things Happen” – and Marc Almond, plus Billy McGee’s orchestration on “Chaostrophy,” Love’s Secret Domain opens with the disorienting “Disco Hospital” and doesn’t let up, feeling less like a rave and more like wandering through a series of rave-tinged atmospheric moments, from unsettling ambient of sorts to full on groove assaults.

The original two-track (if you count its sometimes musicless B-side, depending on edition) How To Destroy Angels EP in 1984 was Coil’s debut effort as such, part of a welter of overlapping tracks and split appearances as the original core duo of John Balance and Peter Christopherson started figuring their way forward. In contrast, the 1992 release How To Destroy Angels (Remixes and Re-Recordings) was a notable reimagining of that first outing, with six different reinterpretations of the title track, three by John Balance, two by Peter Christopherson and one by fellow sonic traveler Steve Stapleton of Nurse With Wound, along with a new cover image from director Derek Jarman. Rather than bring everything into the dance-adjacent world of post-Love’s Secret Domain Coil, the choices here, ranging from an opening two minute effort to two others each clocking in at nearly seventeen minutes, one of which is Stapleton’s directly titled “How To Destroy Angels II,” aim more at exploring a dark, generally (but definitely not totally) beatless ambience and murk showcasing a quiet richness and subtle but vivid detail. 

Coil had fully returned to activity under that name by the closing months of 1999 thanks to efforts like Astral Disaster and the EPs that would be collected as Moon’s Milk (In Four Phases). But they saw out the millennium in even more dramatic and commanding fashion with what rapidly became one of their most celebrated albums, Musick To Play In The Dark Vol. 1. With the lineup consisting of the Astral Disaster lineup of John Balance, Peter Christopherson, Thighpaulsandra and, in his final appearance with the group, Drew McDowall, Coil created what Balance spoke about in interviews and written notes as ‘moon musick,’ an elaboration on the drone and ambient-informed work of their recent years given a calm, chilly and quietly unsettling air. They fully draw on their long-standing interests in psychedelic experiences and ritual practices along with both old and new electronic equipment to create minimalist songs and some true spacerock trips, as on “Red Birds Will Fly Out Of The East and Destroy Paris In A Night,” while Balance’s vocals once again retain a newer air of spare, softly spoken mystery.

The third of Coil’s mid-1990s albums released under an alternate name or identity, 1998’s Time Machines is the most formally extreme of them all, consisting solely of four lengthy pieces each named after a particular hallucinogen. As a statement of purpose as to how the band was never simply one thing or one approach, it’s thoroughly successful on that level, but even better, it’s a wonderful and entrancing listen that helps point the way towards a fair amount of what was soon to follow. Each are calm but by no means gentle drone pieces that are a mix of core loops and more extensive electronic flow, though they don’t all simply stay in one mode throughout, sometimes dropping away to a single element, adding more in turn or changing form in turn. The then-core trio of John Balance, Peter Christopherson and Drew McDowall did the work but various others were thanked in the credits, notably Thighpaulsandra, who would soon become a key member for much of the group’s next and final years. One can also hear the presence at points of electric violist William Breeze in one of his first appearances with them.

Initially released in late 1992 as a limited edition and then rereleased the following year with different track names in response to a bootleg edition emerging, Stolen and Contaminated Songs served something of the same function to Love’s Secret Domain as Gold Is the Metal did for earlier Coil: a companion, a remix collection and a look forward to what the band was starting to pursue next. Beginning with “Furthur,” an alternate to Love’s Secret Domain “Further Back and Faster,” the group’s combination of curiosity about and subversion of the exploding UK house and techno scenes of the 1990s mixed with even more unusual sonic manipulations and treatments. The most notable song to emerge here first was “Nasa-Arab,” a strong slow burn of an eleven minute track that served as a culmination of their dance-leaning approach as a later single. But the full range of the release touched on everything from an early demo of the song “Love’s Secret Domain” itself, John Balance sounding even more fraught, to the sparkling and murmuring instrumental “Inkling” and the majestically giddy “The Original Wild Garlic Memory.”

The start of Coil’s second Musick To Play In The Dark album, released in late 2000, is so incredibly quiet that nobody could be blamed from double checking their volume control a few times, but that itself is a reflection of just how far they had gone in reinventing their approaches over the years that a group known for often overwhelming noise on several fronts could shift on “Something” to what seems like the softest of dark winds. With Coil now a trio following Drew McDowall’s departure, the core of John Balance, Peter Christopherson and Thighpaulsandra follow understandably in the vein of the first album in their work here but don’t simply repeat it, finding new ways to experiment with subtlety and space: bubbling whorls of noise around quiet piano, vocals heavily treated in queasy fashion, a psychedelia that doesn’t aim to overwhelm. The concluding “Batwings (A Liminal Hymn)” is one of the group’s most moving performances, Balance’s voice a deep yearn over quietly lovely music, while the sequencer flow of “Tiny Golden Books” balances drive with a slow build of spooky effects, a trip into the heavens.