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Rating: As promised, Dais Records makes available (in various formats including CDs and limited edition vinyl) the highly anticipated reissue of the second volume of Musick To Play In The Dark by Coil, in my opinion the artistic peak reached by John Balance and Peter Christopherson, here assisted by the trusty Thighpaulsandra, a past collaborator of Julian Cope.
The style of this album mirrors the musical discourse of the previous chapter, although perhaps the industrial component weakens even further. In practice, we are likely facing material from the same recording sessions. In fact, the Coil could easily have released a double LP considering the stylistic continuity of these songs.
Musically, here we are faced with that peculiar dense, minimal, and bizarre sound (here defined as "Moon Music") with which the English group inaugurated the second part of their career. It could indeed be said that this is lunar, dark music to be listened to, as suggested by the title, in the darkness of one's room in a state of meditation.
The beginning is entrusted to the windy chant of "Something" where we can hear an obsessive voice loop repeating the word "Something". Then comes the experimental electro-ethnic symphonism of "Tiny Golden Books", almost a follow-up to the second track of the previous volume where the Coil paid their tribute to the electronics of Tangerine Dream. "Ether" instead opens with electronic drones worthy of the finest Cluster and then continues with the dark sonorities of the piano and Balance's ailing voice. "Paranoid Inlay" is instead an experimental track that evokes distressing emotional states: it's evident how the Coil have become skilled manipulators of sound, and in this sense, Peter Christopherson plays a fundamental role. After the brief interlude of "An Emergency" featuring the celestial voice of Rose McDowall, the album continues with "Where are You?", based on a treated "loop" of a banjo on which Balance tries to lead the listener towards insane visions not of this world. The masterpiece, however, arrives at the end with the sacred hymn of "Batwings", supported by the sonorities of an organ and inspired by the lyrics of English writer Sir Thomas Browne recited in a "trance" state by a Balance in mystical ecstasy.
Frankly, it's hard to say which of the two volumes I prefer. Perhaps I prefer this one by virtue of the second part even though, overall, the first volume was more qualitatively uniform. In any case, we are facing a cornerstone of Coil's career and experimental and electronic music. Available on Bandcamp: https://coilofficial.bandcamp.com/album/musick-to-play-in-the-dark-vol-2.
Tracklist and Lyrics
01 Something (05:04)
Something (repeated)
I know why the birdcage sings
It's wrapped its song round everything
03 Ether (11:34)
It's either ether or the other
My mind is back to front
And sometimes absent
And slip the cup
I've taken a sip from the cup that slips into ether
It's either ether or the other
I press my window to the glass
The glass turns to gas
I breathe out ether, a glass of ether
Ether is a thief
It's stolen my belief
Slip through the ether
We both slip through the ether
Slipstreams of memory slipping away
It's ether
...???...
Slip through the ether
Sip the ether
Sip the ether
Slipstreams of memories slipping away
Slipstreams of memories slipping away
Memories of ??? slipping away into ether
Into ether
I've changed my mind
It's what it's there for
I've changed my mind
It's what it's there for
For therefore
Full of ether
Full of ether
Full of ether
Full of ether
Full of ether
I'm going upstairs now
To take my mind off
I'm going upstairs now
To turn my mind off
(repeated)
07 Batwings (A Limnal Hymn) (11:32)
(The key to joy is disobedience
There is no guilt and there is no shame)
A moon-piece to fetch up the golden cup
A snow-piece to avoid the great heat of the sun
Is kept in the night and by the light of the moon
An ice-piece so as they seem forever fallen
A night-piece of the dismal supper and strange entertainment
A rare chance-piece, a handsome piece of deformity
The skin of a snake bred out of the spinal marrow of a man
With stones and illegible inscriptions found about great ruins
Pictures of three remarkable steeples, or towers
Built purposely awry, so as they seem eternally tipping and falling
A transcendent perfume made of the richest odorates
Kept in a box of translucent scale
A glass of spirits made of ethereal salt, hermetically sealed up
Kept continually in quicksilver, of so volatile a nature
That it will scarcely endure the light
And therefore only shown in winter
Or by the light of a carbuncle, or a firefly
And batwings
And batwings
And batwings sing this limnal hymn
A wideness opening and closing to keep the darkness sealed within
To keep the darkness sealed within
To keep the darkness sealed within
To keep the darkness sealed within
A moon-piece to fetch up the golden cup
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By mementomori
A piece that, by itself, is worth the purchase of the entire album.
Coil's ability to weave murky and unsettling atmospheres remains undeniable.
