The Coil was born in the early '80s from the meeting of the already seasoned talents of John Balance (former Psychic TV, recently deceased) and Peter Christopherson (former Psychic TV and founding member of the seminal Throbbing Gristle). Their music presents itself as a bizarre alchemy of industrial sounds, electronics, and dark wave. Anyone wishing to delve into the insane and perverse world of Coil must necessarily pass through this "Horse Rotorvator", a 1986 work considered by many (including myself) to be their absolute masterpiece. Less dirty and unhealthy than their debut (the valid "Scatology," released two years earlier), it represents a significant step forward both in songwriting and in the care of arrangements and production (listen to how it sounds and then reflect on the fact that we're in '86!), with attention to detail so great it seems miraculous. The sensation one has listening to these notes is hard to define because rarely does one encounter such an intrinsically contrasting work, the fruit of two profoundly antithetical yet complementary personalities, the wild Balance and the more organized and rational Christopherson (his is the merit of channeling, developing, and dressing in formal perfection the overflowing, immediate, and anarchic creativity of the former).
Their work, capable of carrying within itself distant and clashing elements: refined and at the same time kitsch, intellectually high and at the same time vulgar, to the point that it feels like being fucked hard in the clean toilet of a contemporary art gallery. What surprises most is that in the Coil dimension, the worlds of Eros and Thanatos are not in contrast at all; rather, they coexist, indeed coincide, and are the same thing, sublimated in the concept of excess. Everything is excessive in Coil. If they deserve a label, it is certainly "excessive music": the themes are those classic ones of love and death, but here they are transfigured and extremized by madness and drug addiction, so that the former can only become perversion and the latter can only be violent. From here, the reflections on death, the taste for sexual perversion, all addressed with an intellectual flair and the language of art and literary references, especially those to the work of William Burroughs.
From a strictly musical point of view, we are faced with varied and complex music, which defining as industrial could be misleading, as it manages to absorb in itself the most disparate genres, from sophisticated electronics to the darkest ambient, from jazz to Dadaism, from noise to gothic. Concrete examples? Well, it's fair to say we are not far from what was proposed by Virgin Prunes in "If I die, I die", a group and album our artists draw heavily from. But that's not enough; Coil takes us further still, and to get a proper idea of their music, we must take the same Virgin Prunes and blend them with Cabaret Voltaire, Throbbing Gristle, Einstürzende Neubauten, Can, Kraftwerk, and Depeche Mode. Another important note: since Balance frequently collaborated with Current 93 and Death in June, I would also throw a handful of mysticism and a pinch of apocalyptic folk into the mix (not surprisingly, the same album title is taken from biblical verses of the Apocalypse). However, beware, we are not dealing with singers of the end of the world, even if, often erroneously, Coil is considered part of the apocalyptic folk cauldron, precisely by virtue of the friendship that linked their leader with David Tibet and Douglas P.: sure, the tones are unhealthy, but the atmosphere only becomes excessively tense in bits and pieces, and sometimes you might even find yourself laughing since there is a good dose of (black, obviously) humor functioning as an antidote to diffuse the tension.
The music of Coil is therefore essentially a schizophrenic entity, elusive, dominated by sudden mood swings, in which a more grotesque, almost surreal side, which we can even find entertaining, coexists with a disturbingly morbid side, so morbid that it can truly frighten, precisely because it's unexpected. All seasoned with a pronounced taste for excess, for mockery, and for kitsch, which should not lead us to mistakenly think that Coil's music is not serious: quite the opposite; their music is serious, very serious, because we are dealing with well-prepared and competent musicians who carry with them years of experience (let's not forget that Christopherson himself was a pioneer in the use of tapes and samplers), musicians with real talent who know what they are doing and possess full command of their expressive capabilities.
If you still haven't decided on an outright purchase, then I will have to indulge in a track-by-track scan because I would feel guilty if I didn't convince you that this work is truly a must-have, regardless of the music you listen to! It begins with the fairground atmosphere of "The Anal Staircase" (the title itself is already a program!), a mad fanfare in which tribal drumming and Balance's possessed singing lead a merry parade of trombones, bells, children's uproar, and noisy intrusions of every kind. With "Slur", we have continuity in the tribal element, but the tones soften into a kind of electronic pop (?!) with well-cared-for and incredibly original sounds, vaguely reminiscent of "Sweetest Perfection" by Depeche Mode: it has the same hypnotic pace, and the voices, Balance's suave and dark one and Marc Almond's (here as a guest) eunuch-like one, recall the much better known Gahan and Gore. "Babylero" is a brief and freaked-out interlude highlighting Christopherson's talents, who here is intent on violently assaulting a cheerful nursery rhyme. The noises of a quiet summer evening (the singing of crickets, a distant Latin guitar, a barking dog) introduce the Mediterranean atmosphere of "Ostia (The Death of Pasolini)", a masterpiece within the masterpiece, the ultimate tribute our artists pay to the great Italian artist assassinated under unclear circumstances right on the Roman coast: it is an enveloping requiem where the minimalist keyboard plots of Christopherson intertwine with a well-suited arrangement of strings with an Eastern European flavor. The melancholy and oblique vocals do the rest, revealing a sensitivity and a touch one would not expect from someone like Balance. "Herald" is another short and festive interlude that portrays the joyful chaos of a ragtag village band, reminding us fondly of the atmospheres dear to Bregovich: the task is evidently to relieve the tension accumulated with the previous track and open to the threatening and violent pace of "Penetralia", a long instrumental track. The massive beat of the drum machine dominates here, accompanied by the ruthless strikes of an electric guitar and the devastating electronic intrusions by the two multi-instrumentalists. The dissonant clarinet solo by Stephen Thrower (already present as a guest on the previous album and now a full-time group member) joins the sonic orgy, allowing a brief interlude trespassing into the lands of avant-jazz. The noise experiments continue, albeit with a more minimal approach, in "Ravenous", another instrumental, where it is possible to follow the evolutions of not exactly definable sounds, perhaps verses of cats, elephants, and birds scuffling in a tangle that, if not for the disturbing keyboard plots (which put the song's content under the unsettling optics of a ritual), would not be out of place on an avant-noise album like "Creatures Comfort" by Black Dice. "Circle of Mania" is instead a mad and unpredictable piece (it's no coincidence that Jim Thirlwell aka Foetus is involved!) dominated by the singer's mood swings. An almost swing-like cabaret feel (complete with thumping bass and exhilarating winds) serves as the backdrop for an euphoric and over-the-top Balance who's venting all his expressive range: whispers, winks, demented falsettos, sudden screams, hysterical laughter, cries, howls, moans, delusions of all kind, and perversions of all sorts for a performance that seriously embarrasses people like Mike Patton and Jonathan Davis: listen to him simulate intercourse with the shout of "Fucking the ground, fucking the ground, the hole in the ground!" and you will understand. Certainly, one of the craziest moments in rock history!
The euphoria turns into chill with "Blood from the Air," a macabre interlude, where Christopherson's cold electronics paint nightly and apocalyptic landscapes, while Balance's voice becomes controlled and threatening again. The creaking of the electric guitar and the sudden explosions of uncontrolled noise make this piece truly unsettling. A verse like "Death, he is my friend, he promised me a quick end," in light of what will happen one Saturday afternoon 19 years later, takes on the tones of a sinister prophecy. Then it's the turn of the cover of the famous "Who by Fire" by Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen, here in a funereal and slowed-down version, but still recognizable, even if stripped of its acoustic guitar and cloaked in cold synth sounds: another calm track, with a mystically and threateningly biblical pace, where Marc Almond's delicate embroideries accompany Balance's askew croak. It concludes with two instrumentals: the first, the apocalyptic "The Golden Section," with its marching trump and drum pace reminiscent of certain atmospheres dear to Death in June. Actor Paul Vaughan has the honor of narrating, among strong orchestrations, the chronicle of the end of the world. The second, the somewhat banal "The First Five Minutes After Death," perhaps the negligible episode on the album, closes the dances with gothic, somewhat baroque atmospheres reminiscent of a horror movie. What can I say, an absolute masterpiece, a pyrotechnic work, extremely detailed in every aspect, delivering artists in a state of grace.
A work filled with winning solutions and mood changes that keep the listener's attention heightened from the first to the last minute, in which you won't count even one real moment of failure. A must-have, without ifs and buts! "And murder me... in Ostiaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!"
Tracklist Lyrics Samples and Videos
01 The Anal Staircase (04:01)
And the angels kiss
Our souls in bliss
Measure the extent
of a dizzying descent
Down the
Anal staircase.
Put just one foot on
the staircase
And the next step
you're down here
On this face.
And the rapids
Of my heart
Will tear your
ship of live apart
And we'll
End up wrecked
We'll end up
at the start
Of the Anal Staircase.
And the angels kiss
Our souls in bliss
Measure the extent of a
dizzying descent
Down the
Anal staircase.
Take a
hollowpoint revolver
Shoot down the rapids
Of your heart
Blow the f**king
Thing apart
Blow the f**king
Thing apart.
One step
Two step
Three step
Four Step.
02 Slur (03:30)
Roman land
Of Roman sands
And Roman sons.
As I watch the sun
sink down
On the bloodred edge
Of the bloodred town
There are shadows
for sale
On the edge of town
At the edge of the night
Is a darkness seen
From the side
of the light
(From the side
of the night).
And the winds
blow round
this sleeping town
This sleeping town
This Roman land
Of Roman sands
And Roman sons.
And it seems to me
That when I
close my eyes
All the lights in the world
Go out
And the night
passes by
And you whisper to me
A thousand lies
I stare in surprise
Towards the desert's
warm black
And the desert stirs
And the desert stares
back
With a thousand eyes
Piercing eyes
Ancient eyes
And I ask my lover
"Do you know
Where the desert roses
bloom and grow?"
03 Babylero (00:51)
Chiribiribi, porompompom
Chiribiribi, porompompom
Chiribiribi, porompompom
Para ti, Maria Isabel
Para ti, Maria Isabel
(repeated)
04 Ostia (The Death of Pasolini) (06:23)
There's honey in the
hollows
And the countours
of the body
A sluggish
golden river
A sickly golden trickle
A golden, sticky trickle
You can hear
the bones humming
And the car
reverses over
The body in the basin
In the shallow
sea-plane basin.
And the car
reverses over
And his body rolls over
Crushed
from the shoulder
You can hear the
Bones humming
Singing like
a puncture
Killed to keep
the world turning
Throw his bones over
The White Cliffs
of Dover
Into the sea
The Sea of Rome
And the bloodstained
coast
Of Ostia
Leon like a lion
Sleeping in
the sunshine.
Lion lies down.
"Out of the strong
Came forth sweetness."
Throw his bones over
The White Cliffs
of Dover
And murder me
In Ostia.
The Sea of Rome.
You can hear his
bones humming.
Throw his bones over
The White Cliffs
of Dover
And into the sea
The Sea of Rome
Then murder me,
In Ostia.
08 Circles of Mania (05:01)
Nero's long hot tongue
Nero's long hot
tongue licks...
This is the sound
Of the world
turning round
The underground
sound
This is the sound of the
world turning round
The world
spinning round.
You get eaten alive
By the perfect lover.
I fell in
to a burning ring
A burning ring of
knives
And the knives
slide in
They slide deep
into my skin
And they open me
so wide
That you stick your
head inside
You get sewn
inside alive
You get eaten alive
By the perfect lover
When you've
swallowed one
You just
swallow another
To drive away
this hunger
You stay in
there forever
Caught in the centre
Of a circle of manias
Chemical Angel
Enters arena
Toro D'Or
falls to the floor
F**king the ground
The hole in the ground
And hot wires sing
Deep in my skin
I'm writhing...
perspiring...
Like Dutch Schultz at
106 degrees...
And I wake up licking
I wake up licking the
bedsheets clean
Licking and
sucking......
09 Blood From the Air (05:32)
A sleeping explorer
his wandering mind
crossed over the border
a mind like a cemetery
where the corpses
are turning
where the bodies
twist deep
in the frozen grip
of a dreamless sleep
then the lowest
comes up
like a wreck
from the depths.
He hears night calling
and has dreams
of waking
here in this brightness
that burns like
slow lightening
he sees words
burnt in ice
reads, "The World is
a Wound".
Effects of the animal -
Animal sound effects
He says, "Death
he is my friend
He promised me
a quick end".
Says, "The world is
in pain
and should be
put down
and God is a sadist
and that he knows it".
The depths of the
night sky
reflects in his eye
He says,
"Everything changes
And everyone dies".
And the night
slits her veins
and the
darkness drains
and the void
rumbles in
like an
underground train...
Forever comes closer
the world is in pain
we all must be shown
we must realise
that everyone changes
and everything dies
10 Who by Fire (02:37)
And who by fire, who by water,
who in the sunshine, who in the night time,
who by high ordeal, who by common trial,
who in your merry merry month of may,
who by very slow decay,
and who shall I say is calling?
And who in her lonely slip, who by barbiturate,
who in these realms of love, who by something blunt,
and who by avalanche, who by powder,
who for his greed, who for his hunger,
and who shall I say is calling?
And who by brave assent, who by accident,
who in solitude, who in this mirror,
who by his lady's command, who by his own hand,
who in mortal chains, who in power,
and who shall I say is calling?
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By caesar666
"Horse Rotorvator stands as an essential milestone in 'Industrial' music, as well as the musical apex of Coil."
"The absolute 'Must' of the album is undoubtedly 'Ostia' (The Death of Pasolini), a sad and moving elegy."