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17.5.21

2.5.21

Coil - Entrevista no fanzine Grim Humour #10, de "Late Springtime" de 1987

COIL

Background information: A small contribution from Gary Levermore written under his Alex Bastedo guise. Like so many other features in this particular edition, it was printed with a second layer in red behind it, hence its being impossible to reproduce here, unfortunately. Gary might well have been one of the major links we had to such music initially, but I certainly also picked up the first two Coil albums around this period and had equally been picking up Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV records here and there. Andy P. was perhaps more into PTV, however, as was our friend Kerry, who was still working in Herne Bay’s record shop at this point and continuing to get decent records in that were often sold in the bargain bin a couple of months later. We’d developed an interest in electronic music long by this point, what with records by The Residents, Fad Gadget, Cabaret Voltaire, Portion Control, Whitehouse and Nocturnal Emissions having been picked up, but it still seemed to remain largely overlooked by us at this point. At least this piece helped to redress the balance. It also helped fan the flames of an interest that only grew in me over the following years. The group just got better and better until their untimely demise due to the death of Geoff Rushton, a.k.a. Jhon Balance, in November 2004. Only Whitehouse compared with respect to improving and developing their sound and concept, but that’s another story for another time.

Original interview:

With their self-produced second album, Horse Rotorvator, now out, and possible live action beckoning, ex-PTV boys Coil look set for another spell in the upper echelons of the independent chart.

I put it to Jhon Balance of the group that the new album is a better realized conception than their Scatology debut of 1985.

“We prefer to think of it as the second in a series of continuous steps. We like working with recurring themes that can be linked together from record to record.”

With Horse Rotorvator they have chosen to hone in on mankind’s death trip and lead us on a morbid metaphysical journey down history’s cruel staircase of despair, in a search for whatever it is that lurks in the cellar.

“The working title of the LP was Catastrophe Theories, which is taken from the thoughts put forward many years ago by Rene Thom, who studied the possibilities of random or chance events actually being part of a chain of linked events. In some way we are trying to imply certain ideas from that, linked together in a historical context.”

The cover of the record depicts Hyde Park at twilight. Quite pretty until you are told that it refers to IRA bombing of the bandstand tehere.

“It ties in with what I’ve just been saying. The idea of the ‘horse rotorvator’ for me is the machinery of violent chance, as a gauging of events.”

From a celtic wake to traditional Christian mourning to carnival time in New Orleans there are many ways of treating the subject of death in real life. Coil give us the (largely) musical equivalent.

“There is also in fact an emotional equation at work on the record, the idea of sex=death, of which AIDS can be seen as a very small part. The next album, The Dark Age of Love, will explore this in more detail and display the more psychotic side of the ideas behind Horse Rotorvator.”

As you can probably tell, there isn’t a lot of fun to be head in listening to Coil, but then the films of Ingmar Bergman are not much fun either. Like Bergman, Coil at least manage to supply creative values to balance the dark fears their powerful images set loose.

In these days of the third (or is the fourth?) coming of austere industrialism, only The Anti Group, among the current crop of pretenders, have their attitude and aims as well thought out as Coil’s. It comes as no surprise then to learn that the two plan to work together at some point in the future.

“It has surprised me how much our ideas have meshed, especially just recently. It seems to me we are both moving towards the same ends; the nihilistic truth at the centre of the cosmic hall, or whatever.”

Coil as angels searching out their own heart of darkness? Listen and decide for yourself.

NOTE: Obviously, Coil’s third album in their own right, from 1987, was actually titled Gold Is The Metal (With The Broadest Shoulders) in the end. Interesting to see the provisional one noted here, though. Likewise, the collaboration mooted with Adi Newton’s post-Clock DVA group, The Anti Group/TAGC, never actually amounted to anything beyond an idea only Balance himself actually had. Given how the later collaborative sessions between Coil and Nine Inch Nails ended up, maybe this was a blessing.

SELECTED DISCOGRAPHY

‘How To Destroy Angels’ 12” (L.A.Y.L.A.H., Belgium, 1984)

Scatology LP (Force & Form/K.422, 1984)

‘Panic’ 12” (Force & Form, 1985)

Horse Rotorvator LP (Force & Form/K.422, 1986)

‘The Anal Staircase’ 12” (Force & Form/K.422, 1986)

Gold Is The Metal (With The Broadest Shoulders) LP (Threshold House, 1987)

‘The Unreleased Themes for Hellraiser’ 10” (Solar Lodge, 1987)

‘Wrong Eye’ 7” (Shock, 1990)

Love’s Secret Domain LP/CD (Torso, 1991)

Stolen And Contaminated Songs LP/CD (Threshold House, 1992)

‘Themes for Derek Jarman’s Blue’ 7” (Threshold House, 1993)

The Angelic Conversation LP/CD (Threshold House, 1994)

ELpH vs. Coil Worship The Glitch LP/CD (Eskaton, 1995)

Coil Presents Black Light District – A Thousand Lights In A Darkened Room LP/CD (Eskaton, 1996)

Musick To Play In The Dark Cd (Chalice, 1999)

Astral Disaster LP/CD (Prescription/Threshold House, 1999)

Musick To Play In The Dark 2 LP/CD (Chalice, 2000)

The Remote Viewer CD (Threshold House, 2002)

Black Antlers CD (Threshold House, 2004)

ANS 3CD (Threshold House, 2004)

The Ape Of Naples CD (Threshold House, 2005)

And The Ambulance Died In His Arms CD (Threshold House, 2005)

NB: There are numerous Coil (and related) releases, but this serves as a good enough overview of the group’s discography whilst they were still active. Since the death of both Balance in 2004 and then Peter Christopherson in 2010, many posthumous Coil releases have appeared that might never have done so otherwise. A few are interesting, such as the reissued collaborations with Zos Kia from 1984 (on Cold Spring in 2017), but most seem to be only designed to capitalize on the rabid collector mindset many a fan of the group is unfortunately afflicted with. Controversy still reigns where the archives are concerned, unfortunately. When Jhon Balance sang of paying one’s respect to the vultures on ‘The Last Amethyst Deceiver’ (on The Ape of Naples) I’m not sure he had this in mind.