Coil - Industrial esotericism

As with much of the music born from the "industrial revolution" that Throbbing Gristle brought to rock in the late Seventies, Coil's discography has also developed in a thoroughly scattered fashion, between official releases and reworkings of official releases, unreleased material and anthologies, collaborations and side projects. Summing up their story thus amounts to drawing up a rather complicated family tree.

Either way, Coil rightfully established themselves both as leading figures (alongside David Tibet's Current 93) of the "esoteric" strand of British industrial, and — above all — as one of the genre's most creative, imaginative and versatile acts. Their research into sampling the most disparate "sound sources" led them to achieve top-tier results both in the thorniest electronic avant-garde and in crafting regular, even danceable, songs.

It's 1981 when Throbbing Gristle disband, the London quartet that had effectively invented industrial music. Half of the quartet - namely the "guru" Genesis P.Orridge (aka Neil Megson, singer and multi-instrumentalist, a controversial figure and extreme performer) and electronic experimenter Peter Christopherson - then formed a new group, Psychic TV. It was to this lineup that the twenty-year-old Geff Rushton attached himself: a huge Throbbing Gristle fan, the young Geff was already a known figure on the industrial underground scene of the period through his fanzine StabMental and his stints in bands like Murderwerkers and Cultural Amnesia. In 1983 he left Psychic TV and, searching for a more personal path, first joined his friend David Tibet's fledgling Current 93, then Zos Kia, one of the most extreme bands in the movement. That same year, during some Zos Kia recordings documented on the EP Transparent, Rushton chose for himself the stage name John Balance and founded his own personal project called Coil. Shortly after, Peter Christopherson - who had also left Psychic TV - joined the project as well.

Christopherson and Balance soon became a couple in life as well as in art. Their first release under the Coil name came in 1984: the EP How To Destroy Angels, containing a single track, 16 minutes of an occult ceremonial for percussion alone (from gong to every kind of metal object, even swords!), ritual music akin to Current 93's contemporary work.

After this first experiment the duo set to work writing their debut album Scatology, released at the end of the year, marking an abrupt turn toward territory that was less occult and more "mainstream". Balance took up singing and Christopherson let loose on sampling: crucial to the record's success, however, was the contribution of Jim Thirlwell (better known as Foetus), one of industrial rock's great minds, in terms of production and arrangement - he also lends his voice to the single "Panic". The album also features another illustrious guest, Gavin Friday of Virgin Prunes, who writes and performs the lyrics to "Tenderness Of Wolves", the darkest track on the record alongside the exquisitely refined instrumental "At The Heart Of It All". On the whole, the album unfolds along the lines of an industrial sound that is at times darkly gothic, at times propulsive and danceable. Coil wed their esoteric, experimental background to more regular, accessible structures, inventing gothic-industrial with this album and effectively kicking off their real career.

With Thirlwell still at their side (hidden behind the pseudonym Clint Ruin) and with the addition of a third official member, multi-instrumentalist Stephen Thrower (ex-Possession), Balance and Christopherson refined the formula and delivered the masterpiece of this first period of their career with Horse Rotorvator (Some Bizarre, 1986). Christopherson and his Fairlight sampler dominate the proceedings, while Balance's vocals reveal him as a "shaman" of rare charisma and magnetism. "The Anal Staircase" became their first real hit, even in clubs, with its heavy, lurching beat showered with a myriad of samples. The record's strength lies in its eclecticism, in its sonic energy, all placed at the service of an insinuating, morbid atmosphere. The group's horizons are extremely broad: "Slur", sung by Marc Almond of Soft Cell, is another perverse, gripping track with a vaguely gypsy feel; "Penetralia", an instrumental halfway between a folk march and violent industrial rock (a track that bands like Ministry and Nine Inch Nails would clearly take notes from a few years later); there's the gothic apotheosis of "Ravenous", the deranged fanfare of "Circles Of Mania", the infernal psalm of "Blood From The Air", the martial march of "The Golden Section", and even a cover of Leonard Cohen's "Who by fire?". And finally there's the landmark track, "Ostia (the death of Pasolini)", a litany superbly intoned by John Balance, in which the allegorical transfiguration of the death of the Friulian director and writer becomes the occasion for a daring, spectacular arrangement, between jittery acoustic guitar arpeggios and the romantic swells of a string section.

Few albums can boast such a miraculous balance between such a variety of styles and inspirations as Horse Rotorvator; the lyrics abandon the more obvious esoteric references to focus on orgiastic scenes and strictly homosexual themes. Every track and every arrangement literally overflows with sex, death, violence. Coil create one of the most courageous and innovative records of the 1980s, with which they effectively bring the first period of their career to a close.

The following years saw the pair withdraw from the spotlight to focus on various collaborations (Balance became a regular guest on Current 93 records, while Christopherson also pursued a parallel career as a photographer and visual artist, directing numerous music videos, not only for other "industrial" friends but also, for instance, "Owner Of A Lonely Heart", the pop hit by Yes), while Coil's official output was limited to the release of Gold Is The Metal… (Threshold House, 1987), an album of (interesting) outtakes and reworkings drawn from the mass of material produced during the sessions for the two previous albums. The pair also took on a soundtrack commissioned by the brilliant horror director and writer Clive Barker for his film "Hellraiser", but the work was never completed, given the negative response from the film's producers, who considered Coil's music far too experimental and unsettling.

Apart from that, silence - broken only by two singles ("The Wheal" and "Wrong Eye") - reigned until 1990, the year Coil released the first volume in the Unnatural History series, a compilation gathering rarities and unreleased material: there's no shortage of gems, especially the first four tracks recorded under the name "Sickness of Snakes" in collaboration with the controversial Californian avant-gardist Boyd Rice.

It wasn't until 1991 that Coil finally returned with a new album, the disorienting Love's Secret Domain: this time joined by techno producer Danny Hyde, the album - packed with guest stars and collaborators (including Marc Almond and Rose McDowall) - veers toward house music, particularly on the singles "The Snow" and "Windowpane". Only a handful of scattered moments recall the past, among them "Titan Arch", sung by Marc Almond, and the spectral interlude of "Dark River". The craft of sound manipulation seems to have taken precedence over that of music-making, though there's certainly no shortage of flashes of brilliance: "Teenage Lighting", a bizarre hybrid of flamenco and electronic avant-garde; "Chaostrophy", an extraordinary sketchbook of orchestral ideas; "Things Happen", a relentless acid-pop experiment.

As before, the album is paired with a companion collection of outtakes and reworked material from the same sessions, Stolen And Contaminated Songs, released the following year.

The album met with a measure of success, enough that people began to imagine a conversion on the band's part toward mainstream electronic music; instead, needless to say, Coil disappeared from the scene once again, releasing no new material for several years: the nineties were thus spent clearing out the vaults of a great deal of fascinating leftover material: in 1992 the debut EP How To Destroy Angels was reworked with the help of Steven Stapleton (Nurse With Wound) and reissued in an expanded new edition; in 1994 the enchanting soundtrack composed ten years earlier for director Derek Jarman's film The Angelic Conversation was released, for whom Coil also wrote the music for the film "Blue".

Throughout the mid-1990s Coil continued to release experimental and rather disorienting material under the aliases ELpH and Black Light District, put out two further volumes of the Unnatural History anthology series, and in 1995 remixed several tracks from Nine Inch Nails' "The Downward Spiral". It was with Trent Reznor himself, in his New Orleans studios, that Coil recorded a huge amount of material that would, however, not see official release for a long time, even though it immediately surfaced as a bootleg under the title Backwards.

It wasn't until the late 1990s that Balance and Christopherson reinvented themselves once again, this time as learned experimentalists: their new calling aimed to build a bridge between the cosmic music of Tangerine Dream and the new stars of English electronic music (there are indeed clear nods to Autechre and the "ambient works" of Aphex Twin), while simultaneously bringing their religiously-rooted inspirations back to the fore; devoted to shamanism, Nordic magic, and the study of Crowley and Spare, John Balance would from this point on take on a unique charisma, coinciding with Coil's first live appearances. Possessed and magnetic, the group's leader would become the spiritual guide of an entire "esoteric" subculture, musical and otherwise.

This new chapter, Coil's golden era, began quietly with the four lengthy compositions released under the title Time Machines (1998), a work that, according to John Balance himself, was conceived and realized under heavy doses of hallucinogens. And it shows. The experiment results in a work that is fascinating, if demanding.

By contrast, Coil deliver their absolute masterpiece with the two volumes of Musick To Play In The Dark (1999-2000), an encyclopedia of magical music (or "Moon Musick", as Balance himself called it) that marks the pinnacle of the duo's artistic research. Aided by Drew McDowall and keyboardist Thighpaulsandra (born Timothy Lewis, a former member of Spiritualized and a collaborator of Julian Cope), Balance and Christopherson create a complex, monumental work, split into two separately released volumes, for a total of 117 minutes of music. A journey that unfolds through tracks that shape time and space at will, moving from the gorgeous, atmospheric "cosmic" electronics of "Red Birds Will Fly Out Of The East And Destroy Paris In A Night" (the mile-long title taken from one of Nostradamus's centuries) to the elegant, jazzy stride of the extraordinary "Red Queen", from shadowy litanies like "Ether" and "The Dreamer Is Still Asleep" to the ethnic, symphonic openness of "Tiny Golden Books". All the way to the absolute rarefaction of the closing "Batwings", perhaps the most evocative moment of the entire work: a psalm carried solely by John Balance's spoken voice, accompanied only by a few timid keyboard notes and sparse background noise. Taken as a whole, "Musick…" stands as a magnificent work, an example of free, inspired music, an astral reinvention of decades of musical certainties and forms we thought we knew.

The magical moment (in every sense) that characterizes this second youth of the group continues with Astral Disaster, a work wrongly dismissed by many as a side episode, but in truth another splendid work of powerful mystical and symbolic as well as musical significance. Recorded in 1998 during the days of Samhain (the original pagan festival destroyed by the American-style farce of Halloween) and released on December 31, 1999 in an extremely limited vinyl edition (99 copies, fittingly), the album was later reissued in a standard CD edition with splendid artwork by Steven Stapleton and a revised and corrected tracklist. It features Drew McDowell, Thighpaulsandra, and guests such as Gary Ramon (of shoegazers SunDial). Musically, the work is even more devoted to the exploration of "cosmic" sounds, starting with the opening "The Avatars", an assortment of hums and sidereal echoes worthy of Tangerine Dream. The album nonetheless finds its true purpose in the two lengthy ceremonials "The Mothership And The Fatherland" (22'), rich with splendid ambient touches, and "The Sea Priestess" (14'), which pits an abyssal occult chant intoned by John Balance (inspired by a visit to Aleister Crowley's famous house/temple in Cefalù) against a sonic backdrop recalling the most ascetic side of Popol Vuh. Also worth noting is the track featured only on the CD version, a variation on the ambient theme of "The Mothership And The Fatherland", titled "MU-UR", which adds a delicate piano loop to the mix.

The year 2000 continues with Constant Shallowness Leads To Evil, culminating in the suite “Tunnel Of Goats”, along with Queens Of The Circulating Library, a lengthy composition created by John Balance alone with Thighpaulsandra. The latter then releases his first solo album in 2001, but the presence of John Balance as vocalist and lyricist and of Christopherson on electronic treatments makes Thighpaulsandra I a Coil record in every sense as well. This extremely intense two-year period closes in January 2002 with a second monumental double album under the banner of that “Moon Musick” which seems to feed Balance's genius without pause. The work is released under the title Moon’s Milk (In Four Phases) and actually gathers not new material but four EPs recorded in 1998 and released to mark the two solstices and the two equinoxes. The music drifts towards ever more “cosmic” and spiritual territories, and above all keeps exploding into dazzling flashes of radiant beauty. “Amethyst Deceiver”, “Rosa Decidua”, “Magnetic North” and many others. 

As feverish, frantic and overflowing with material as the 1998-2002 activity was, just as sudden is the new silence into which Coil retreat, though they continue to make frequent live appearances. Until 13 November 2004, the day when John Balance, betrayed by decades-long problems with alcoholism, falls down the stairs of his home and dies — an absurd and sudden disappearance that leaves both his fans and his friends and fellow musicians disoriented and incredulous.

At the time of his death Coil were once again changing skin: after a decade of incredible electronic exploration, they were now experimenting with a more “live” sound (helped also by new members Mike York, Cliff Stapleton and Simon Norris), a strange, undulating sound, at once dense and minimal, refined across releases that were not entirely official though of absolute worth, such as “The Remote Viewer” (2003) and “Black Antlers” (2004). 

The official act that closes the story of Coil is instead the album assembled by Christopherson as a heartfelt tribute to the memory of his former partner, The Ape Of Naples (2005) tells of alien, hallucinated “songs”. A testament-album that is also one of the most successful expressions of Coil's art, an album that closes an extraordinary career in the best possible way; but naturally it will also, and above all, be remembered as the last opportunity to share the visions of Geff Rushton, a man who fed his life and his art with his own excesses, turning them into milestones of an intense personal and spiritual journey as well as a musical one. A journey that ends in this album of great, anguished and luminous beauty.

Peter Christopherson gathers up the legacy: officially releasing numerous and precious bootlegs, launching a new personal project of his own called The Threshold HouseBoys Choir and successfully reuniting with his old bandmates in Throbbing Gristle. The circle is closed.

Ride the wave of great music

Add OndaRock to your favorite sources on Google Discover. Don't miss our reviews, milestones and latest news straight in your feed.

Follow on Google