Livros sobre música que vale a pena ler - Cromo #97: Man Is The Animal: A Coil Zine Issue Three

 Este não é um livro mas é um fanzine... muito parecido com um livro.

autor: Cormac Pentecost (edição) - Vários

título: Man Is The Animal: A Coil Zine - Issue Three

editora: Temporal Boundary Press
nº de páginas: 72
isbn: N/A

data: 2022

formato: A5

Contents

Man Is The Animal – Preface - Introduction – 4

Singularities Of Art And Nature, by John Coulthart – 6

“There’s a Man Laying Down In A Grave Somewhere”, by Joseph Breitman – 13

“Shadows Only Exist When The Spotlight Is On, An Interview with Mead McLean – 16

“In Perpetual Motion”: The Coil Manifesto As Theory In Practice, by Nick Soulsby – 26

The Manifesto – 41

Coil’s Fano Concert, by Kiefer Gorena – 43

Peter Christopherson Is Alive And Well And Living In Parentheses! – by Nick Hudson – 63

 

Introduction / Preface

Man Is The Animal

Cormac Pentecost

The posthumous life of Coil continues apace as reissues of the back catalogue keep appearing. This is to be welcomed because it seems incredible that major works by such an important group can remain unavailable on all formats. The general default position with regards to music access now is that everything is available instantly. It seems very strange to search on Amazon or streaming services and find that the only way to hear some of Coil’s classic works is through unofficial downloads. The more widely that these works can be made available the better. Having said that, it is necessary to acknowledge that Coil’s legacy is a particularly mess and contested affair. Man is The Animal takes no position on which releases are more authentic or official than others. Indeed, as I’m old enough to remember being grateful for a third generation tape, or a scratched vinyl copy. I’m delighted by any decent quality reissue of Coil’s material.

In a strange way, the problem with accessing Coil’s music might have an upside because it conveys a sense of scarcity and specialness to their work which is difficult to find elsewhere. If there is a magickal intent to their work (and there definitely is) this scarcity helps to conjure a totemic quality to the back catalogue. But it is important that we don’t get too stuck on the objects themselves. In issue one of Man is the Animal, Sean Oscar discussed his own ambivalent feelings regarding the hauntological aspects of Coil’s back catalogue and the almost sacred veneration of their physical releases: ‘I don’t think I’m even interested in owning an “authentic Coil record” anymore. It would be like trying to grasp and hold onto someone else’s memories, like obsessing over the material of the threads while remaining deaf to the rising harmony of their vibrations.’

In the present issue, John Coulthard expresses a similar attitude with regards to the ideas behind Coil’s work: ‘In interviews the discussion was often less concerned with the songs than the ideas or philosophies or experiences that inform them.’ We are fortunate that later this year we will be able to dive in to many of these interviews due to the work of Nick Soulsby whose Everything Keeps Dissolving: Conversations with Coil will be published by Strange Attractor Press. Nick has his second article for Man is the Animal in this issue., examining the evolving history of the Coil manifesto through its many iterations. A new version of the manifesto is presented herein based on Nick’s research.

Elsewhere, there is poetry from Joseph Breitman; Kiefer Gorena from the Coil Live Archive looks at the band’s 2002 performance in Fano; whilst Nick Hudson takes a very different live show as the starting point for his meditation on Coil’s unique sound world.

And so, with this new issue, we again seek to keep the harmony of their vibrations rising.