Coil Downbeat | Electronica | Leftfield 25 Items

Queens Of The Circulating Library stands alongside Time Machines and Nurse With Wound's Soliloquy For Lilith as a post-industrial pinnacle of sensory-warping long-form drone. Crafted by the distilled duo of Thighpaulsandra and John Balance, the 49-minute piece unfurls in swirling, cyclical waves, tidal as much as textural, channeling the spirit of levitational minimalism pioneered by La Monte Young. Touted as the first part in "a continually mutating series of circulating musickal compositions" upon its initial release in 2000, the album remains a compelling case study in Coil's exceptional capacity for mutation and extremes. The theatrical introductory monologue delivered by Thighpaulsandra's mother - a career opera singer, in her 80's at the time of recording - sets the stage for a grandiose ascension. Written by Balance, the text is declamatory but dreamlike, refracted through megaphone echo: "Return the book of knowledge / Return the marble index / File under "Paradox" / The forest is a college, each tree a university." As her voice fades, the lulling synthetic infinity deepens, congealing into transient crests of volume and haze, like slow-motion surf misting in moonlight. Thighpaulsandra describes their aesthetic intention as a "bliss out," static but shape-shifting, an amniotic drift towards an eternal vanishing point. A supreme sonic embodiment of the slogan on the sleeve of Time Machines, two years prior: "Persistence is all."

First compiled as a double CD in 2002, Moon's Milk (in Four Phases) is a suite of four EPs that Coil released seasonally via their in-house Eskaton imprint across 1998. The line-up for these sessions were John Balance, Peter "Sleazy" Christopherson, Drew McDowall, and William Breeze. Recorded primarily at their home studio in Chiswick, London on the eve of a permanent relocation to the small seaside town of Weston-Super-Mare, the collection has long loomed as a pivotal and pinnacle work in the group's discography, but has never been officially reissued, or repressed on vinyl. Time has only ripened its tapestry of regal strangeness. Arranged sequentially in tribute to the equinoxes and solstices, Moon's Milk captures Coil at a revelatory crossroads, leaning deeper into improvisation, spontaneity, and sound design. "Moon's Milk or Under an Unquiet Skull" initiates the proceedings on Spring Equinox, a two-part netherworld organ séance woven from vocal drones, cathedral keys, seasick strings, and opiated undertow. From there, Summer Solstice skews lighter but no less incantational, with Balance embracing his voice-as-instrument across lucid dream torch songs ("Bee Stings"), purgatorial spoken word ("Glowworms/Waveforms"), sultry chamber pieces ("Summer Substructures"), and falsetto ravings ("A Warning From The Sun (For Fritz)"). Autumn Equinox exudes more of a pensive and twilit mood, from the Rose McDowall-sung folk ballad "Rosa Decidua" ("I hear your voice sing near to me / I've put away the poisoned chalice (for now) / And lie down amongst the flowerbeds") to hall-of-lords hallucination "The Auto-Asphyxiating Hierophant" to the liminal string-plucked classic "Amethyst Deceivers," featuring excellent alien guitar by Breeze layered with Balance's oft-quoted couplet: "Pay your respects to the vultures / For they are your future." The album's final chapter, Winter Solstice, is its most swooning, remote, and ceremonial. Opener "A White Rainbow" stirs strings, layered choral vocals, and shivering rhythm into an imploding burial hymn. "North" oscillates bleakly, a ghost in the machine murmuring opaque prophecy ("This black dog has no owner / This black dog has no odour"), while "Magnetic North" is its inverse, a guided meditation of gently flickering software and surreal chakra poetics ("Red rose filling the skull / Yellow cube in the lower pelvis / Silver moon crescent below the navel"). The suite fades to grey with a traditional English carol ("Christmas Is Now Drawing Near"), rendered like an executioner's song by Rose McDowall's doomed, beautiful voice. The Dais box set includes the entirety of the rare Moon's Milk Bonus Disc Cd-r / 2019 Threshold Archives Copal CD, which includes three collaborations with Thighpaulsandra. This material is as rich and intoxicating as the previous four phases, ranging from electro-acoustic singing bowl rituals ("Copal") to dissonant electronic recitations of visionary Angus MacLise poetry ("The Coppice Meat") to ominous classical melancholia ("Bankside"). Once again, Coil confirm the vastness of their confounding, infinite alchemy, explored and refined across decades of experimentation - both sonic and bodily. From postindustrial to post-everything, theirs is an art untethered, in the wilds of its own design.

“The Ape of Naples” is a deeply emotional and uniquely rewarding album. In its immediate accessibility it is somewhat reminiscent of Coil’s mid-1980s classic “Horse Rotorvator” sharing that album’s wild variety of sounds and styles as well as its overriding sombre mood. Originally released in 2005 and in many ways the band’s ultimate swan song, it is now considered one of the go-to albums for introducing new listeners to the unparalleled magick of Coil. Compiled and released by Peter Christopherson and Danny Hyde one year after Jhonn Balance’s tragic deadly fall, it includes reworkings of the live favourite “Amethyst Deceivers” and “Love Secret’s Domain”‘s “Teenage Lightning” as well as several songs originally intended for the ill-fated “Backwards” album like the haunting and preminiscent “Fire of the Mind” and the superb “Amber Rain”. Other tracks were created using unfinished song ideas from around “Backwards”, sampling tiny bits of Balance’s live vocals from songs only ever performed in concert once like “Triple Sun”. Using the lyrics of the theme tune for the 1970s BBC sit com series “Are you being served?” for the unbelievably haunting “Going up”, this album’s final track and the last song Coil ever performed live, is maybe the most poignant example of Balance’s and Christopherson’s method of turning base matter into pure sound gold, and like the title of the album, derived from an imaginary adult video an equally fine example of the often underappreciated humour of the boys.

Christopherson with the help of long-term sound wizard Danny Hyde and using some of the talent of Coil touring members managed to craft an album which feels and flows like a true Coil classic.

First vinyl reissue, available on LP for the first time in 20 years - Completely remastered audio and restored artwork - Side D lunar vinyl etching art // After leaving London in 1999 for the sleepy seaside retiree town of Weston-super-Mare, Coil co-founders John Balance and Peter "Sleazy" Christopherson set up shop in a palatial eight-bedroom estate to pursue the outer reaches of the group's heightening cabalistic chemistry. Among the staggering string of late-era masterpieces they produced is lunar opus Musick To Play In The Dark, widely hailed as an artistic zenith upon its release. The sessions that birthed it were in fact so fruitful that a second LP took shape during the creation of the first one. Aided by the recent addition of Welsh multi-instrumentalist engineer Thighpaulsandra, Coil mined further into the recesses of surrealist eldritch electronica Balance termed "moon music" - post-industrial spellcasting at the axis of narcotic and nocturnal energies. Musick To Play In The Darký spans a full witching hour of bad acid sound design, synthesizer voyaging, opiated balladry, Luciferian glitch, and subliminal hymnals, alternately ominous, oracular, and absurd. Scottish gothic icon Rose McDowall guests on vocals for two tracks but otherwise the album is a hermetic affair, tapping into the group's limitless insular synergy. Opener "Something" is stark and incantational, a spoken word experiment for windswept voids. "Tiny Golden Books" unspools an aerial whirlpool of cosmic synth, both whispery and widescreen. "Ether" is an exercise in funeral procession piano and intoxicated wordplay ("It's either ether or the other"), while "Where Are You?" and "Batwings - A Liminal Hymn" lurk like liturgical murmurings heard on one's death bed, framed in granular FX and flickering candlelight. As a whole the collection skews more muted and remote than its predecessor, as if having grown accustomed to the nether regions of these darkening seances. But music box hallucination "Paranoid Inlay" captures the group's oblique comedic side, always glimmering beneath: over a warped, wobbly beat Balance intones an opaque narrative of serenity, Saint Peter, and suicidal vegetables, accompanied by spiraling harpsichord and stuttering squelches of electronics. "It seems concussion suits you," he repeats twice, like a macabre pickup line, before dictating a dear diary entry about risks and failures, finally concluding with as close to a self-portrait as Coil ever came: "On a clear day I can see forever / that the underworld is my oyster."

* 'The Ape of Naples' is a deeply emotional and uniquely rewarding album * The Infinite Fog version is the third Coil record receiving the fully remastered and enhanced 3lp/2cd treatment supervised by Danny Hyde * Includes 9 additional rare or unreleased tracks * All of the original material has again been carefully and sympathetically remastered by Grammy-nominated engineer Jessica Thompson who has been previously lauded for her splendid job on its sister release 'The New Backwards' * The 3LP comes in heavy trifold cover, CDs in 6-sided Digpaks with booklet and posters * 1st Edition CD comes with original CD cover art (Red Ape Image), 2nd Edition CD comes with original vinyl cover art (Black Abstract Image) * Limited 555 copies 185g Picture Disc 3LP Edition packaged in hotfoil embossed cover * Picture Disc 3LP showing in images #3, #4, and #5 belowThe Ape of Naples' is a deeply emotional and uniquely rewarding album. In its immediate accessibility it is somewhat reminiscent of Coil's mid-1980s classic 'Horse Rotorvator' sharing that album's wild variety of sounds and styles as well as its overriding sombre mood. Originally released in 2005 and in many ways the band's ultimate swan song, it is now considered one of the go-to albums for introducing new listeners to the unparalleled magick of Coil. Compiled and released by Peter Christopherson and Danny Hyde one year after Jhonn Balance's tragic deadly fall, it includes reworkings of the live favorite 'Amethyst Deceivers' and 'Love Secret's Domain's' 'Teenage Lightning' as well as several songs originally intended for the ill-fated 'Backwards' album like the haunting and reminiscent 'Fire of the Mind' and the superb 'Amber Rain'. Other tracks were created using unfinished song ideas from around 'Backwards', sampling tiny bits of Balance's live vocals from songs only ever performed in concert once like 'Triple Sun'. Using the lyrics of the theme tune for the 1970s BBC sit com series 'Are you being served?' for the unbelievably haunting 'Going up', this album's final track and the last song Coil ever performed live, is maybe the most poignant example of Balance's and Christopherson's method of turning base matter into pure sound gold, and like the title of the album, derived from an imaginary adult video an equally fine example of the often underappreciated humor of the boys. Christopherson with the help of long-term sound wizard Danny Hyde and using some of the talent of Coil touring members managed to craft an album which feels and flows like a true Coil classic. The Infinite Fog version is the third Coil record receiving the fully remastered and enhanced 3lp/2cd treatment supervised by Danny Hyde. All of the original material has again been carefully and sympathetically remastered by Grammy-nominated engineer Jessica Thompson who has been previously lauded for her splendid job on its sister release 'The New Backwards'. Coil fans old and new will be thrilled over the inclusion of more than an hour's worth of 9 rare and largely unheard bonus tracks from Danny's vaults completing the set. The astounding design of the original box-set release is restored for the gatefold 3LP sleeve using the fully-licensed artwork by Ian Johnstone (making it easy to differentiate this new vinyl version from previous un-sanctioned LP releases using poor reproductions of the original CD art for the front cover), the CD will be available in two versions with the original and well-loved original CD cover art and for the first time using the former vinyl-only cover art. If you do not yet own a physical copy of the 'Ape of Naples', or if you always wanted an enhanced version of this masterpiece, there has never been a better time to make that wish come true.

Queens Of The Circulating Library stands alongside Time Machines and Nurse With Wound's Soliloquy For Lilith as a post-industrial pinnacle of sensory-warping long-form drone. Crafted by the distilled duo of Thighpaulsandra and John Balance, the 49-minute piece unfurls in swirling, cyclical waves, tidal as much as textural, channeling the spirit of levitational minimalism pioneered by La Monte Young. Touted as the first part in "a continually mutating series of circulating musickal compositions" upon its initial release in 2000, the album remains a compelling case study in Coil's exceptional capacity for mutation and extremes.

The theatrical introductory monologue delivered by Thighpaulsandra's mother - a career opera singer, in her 80's at the time of recording - sets the stage for a grandiose ascension. Written by Balance, the text is declamatory but dreamlike, refracted through megaphone echo: "Return the book of knowledge / Return the marble index / File under "Paradox" / The forest is a college, each tree a university." As her voice fades, the lulling synthetic infinity deepens, congealing into transient crests of volume and haze, like slow-motion surf misting in moonlight. Thighpaulsandra describes their aesthetic intention as a "bliss out," static but shape-shifting, an amniotic drift towards an eternal vanishing point. A supreme sonic embodiment of the slogan on the sleeve of Time Machines, two years prior: "Persistence is all."

The turn of the millennium ushered in an apex visionary phase for English esoteric duo Coil. Relocating from the city to the coastal quiet of Westonsuper-Mare freed them to follow even more fringe obsessions, fully untethered from peer influence. During a single six-month stretch in 2000 they released the devious underworld sequel to Music To Play In The Dark, arcane drone summit Queens Of The Circulating Library, and a malevolent hour-long synthesizer exorcism prophetically titled Constant Shallowness Leads To Evil. This latter work remains one of the group's most miasmic and mind-expanding creations, on par with Time Machines - a sustained divination of shuddering, psychoactive noise, rippling with the motion sickness of an all-seeing eye. Thighpaulsandra characterizes the album as "an exercise in brutality," born from a thorny patch of his Serge modular unit that Peter "Sleazy" Christopherson found entrancing. Processing this sliver of electronics into a ravaged labyrinth was a trial and error process, aided by Christopherson's visual sense of sound, stretching and manipulating it for maximum spatial disorientating. Frequencies nauseously crawl across the stereo field, burrowing into the ear like a sinister brainwashing experiment. An outlier / centerpiece is the 13-minute alien tribalist sea shanty, "I Am The Green Child," guided by John Balance's sung-spoken free verse concerning vengeance, oblivion, and insanity, culminating in the memorable refrain, "We're swimming in a sea of occidental vomit." But the rest of the record seethes in unhinged instrumental chaos, divided into 18 micro-movements of a composition called "Tunnel Of Goats." Intended to scramble the functionality of a CD player's shuffle mode, the piece throbs, thrashes, and flatlines in compressed frenzies of twisted synthesis, at the threshold of some bottomless purgatory, forbidding and unknown.

The turn of the millennium ushered in an apex visionary phase for English esoteric duo Coil. Relocating from the city to the coastal quiet of Westonsuper-Mare freed them to follow even more fringe obsessions, fully untethered from peer influence. During a single six-month stretch in 2000 they released the devious underworld sequel to Music To Play In The Dark, arcane drone summit Queens Of The Circulating Library, and a malevolent hour-long synthesizer exorcism prophetically titled Constant Shallowness Leads To Evil. This latter work remains one of the group's most miasmic and mind-expanding creations, on par with Time Machines - a sustained divination of shuddering, psychoactive noise, rippling with the motion sickness of an all-seeing eye. Thighpaulsandra characterizes the album as "an exercise in brutality," born from a thorny patch of his Serge modular unit that Peter "Sleazy" Christopherson found entrancing. Processing this sliver of electronics into a ravaged labyrinth was a trial and error process, aided by Christopherson's visual sense of sound, stretching and manipulating it for maximum spatial disorientating. Frequencies nauseously crawl across the stereo field, burrowing into the ear like a sinister brainwashing experiment. An outlier / centerpiece is the 13-minute alien tribalist sea shanty, "I Am The Green Child," guided by John Balance's sung-spoken free verse concerning vengeance, oblivion, and insanity, culminating in the memorable refrain, "We're swimming in a sea of occidental vomit." But the rest of the record seethes in unhinged instrumental chaos, divided into 18 micro-movements of a composition called "Tunnel Of Goats." Intended to scramble the functionality of a CD player's shuffle mode, the piece throbs, thrashes, and flatlines in compressed frenzies of twisted synthesis, at the threshold of some bottomless purgatory, forbidding and unknown.

“The New Backwards” was conceived by Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson in 2007, revisiting stray tracks which hadn’t seemed to gel with the material he had chosen for the more somber “Ape of Naples” from 2005, Coil’s initial posthumous release, a sort of requiem and a kiss-goodbye to his then recently deceased partner John Balance.

Significantly different to its sister release, this album collects the brilliantly chaotic and outrageously rhythmic material from the original sessions for the album that was begun as early as 1993 and had originally been conceptualised as the follow-up to “Love’s Secret Domain”. These songs are as diverse and wild as the places they originated from, partly infamously spawned in Sharon Tate’s former home in the Hollywood Hills, the Nine Inch Nails home base in New Orleans and London’s Swanyard, remixed and restructured with the help of long-term friend Danny Hyde in Thailand, this collection has its own unique flow and an atmosphere not found on any other Coil release.

Both “ayor” and “Backwards” had by the time the album was first released already become favourites in Coil’s manic live performances. Some of the other tracks had only leaked in demo versions and are here presented updated and polished as Christopherson and Hyde intended them to be heard. It is interesting to consider Balance’s vocal contributions, too. Whilst on the albums Coil did release at the time this material was first put aside (“Black Light District” and “ElpH”) his voice is all but absent, his vocal performances and his lyric writing here are arguably more closely indebted to the previous “Love’s Secret Domain” era, especially the epic “Copacaballa” is noteworthy in that respect. The New Backwards” effectively became the final official Coil studio release of all new material whilst Peter was still alive and is here presented for the first time fully supervised by Danny Hyde, its co-creator. The stunning cover uses a detail from artist Ian Johnstone’s “Cubic Raven” painting, licensed from the estate of IJ..

It is high time to rediscover this timeless album now!

Recorded at Swanyard, London and at Nothing Studios, New Orleans, 1996. Thanks to everyone there, especially Trent Reznor who made it all possible. Written & Produced by Coil & Danny Hyde. Remixed by Peter Christopherson & Danny Hyde, Bangkok 2007. For that session Coil were: Peter Christopherson, Jhonn Balance & Drew McDowall. Mastered by Jessica Thompson. Front artwork by Ian Johnstone. Artwork licensed from The Estate of Ian Johnstone. Layout Cold Graves and Oleg Galay.

First vinyl reissue, available on LP for the first time in 20 years - Completely remastered audio and restored artwork - Side D lunar vinyl etching art // After leaving London in 1999 for the sleepy seaside retiree town of Weston-super-Mare, Coil co-founders John Balance and Peter "Sleazy" Christopherson set up shop in a palatial eight-bedroom estate to pursue the outer reaches of the group's heightening cabalistic chemistry. Among the staggering string of late-era masterpieces they produced is lunar opus Musick To Play In The Dark, widely hailed as an artistic zenith upon its release. The sessions that birthed it were in fact so fruitful that a second LP took shape during the creation of the first one. Aided by the recent addition of Welsh multi-instrumentalist engineer Thighpaulsandra, Coil mined further into the recesses of surrealist eldritch electronica Balance termed "moon music" - post-industrial spellcasting at the axis of narcotic and nocturnal energies. Musick To Play In The Darký spans a full witching hour of bad acid sound design, synthesizer voyaging, opiated balladry, Luciferian glitch, and subliminal hymnals, alternately ominous, oracular, and absurd. Scottish gothic icon Rose McDowall guests on vocals for two tracks but otherwise the album is a hermetic affair, tapping into the group's limitless insular synergy. Opener "Something" is stark and incantational, a spoken word experiment for windswept voids. "Tiny Golden Books" unspools an aerial whirlpool of cosmic synth, both whispery and widescreen. "Ether" is an exercise in funeral procession piano and intoxicated wordplay ("It's either ether or the other"), while "Where Are You?" and "Batwings - A Liminal Hymn" lurk like liturgical murmurings heard on one's death bed, framed in granular FX and flickering candlelight. As a whole the collection skews more muted and remote than its predecessor, as if having grown accustomed to the nether regions of these darkening seances. But music box hallucination "Paranoid Inlay" captures the group's oblique comedic side, always glimmering beneath: over a warped, wobbly beat Balance intones an opaque narrative of serenity, Saint Peter, and suicidal vegetables, accompanied by spiraling harpsichord and stuttering squelches of electronics. "It seems concussion suits you," he repeats twice, like a macabre pickup line, before dictating a dear diary entry about risks and failures, finally concluding with as close to a self-portrait as Coil ever came: "On a clear day I can see forever / that the underworld is my oyster."

2018 re-cut from original Peter Christopherson approved masters.

The Ape of Naples is Coil's highly celebrated final album completed by Peter Christopherson following the tragic death of Jhonn Balance in 2004. Often noted for being a fan favorite, The Ape of Naples uses Balance's final recordings and material recorded at Trent Reznor's studio in New Orleans to create a deep, heavy masterpiece.

This re-press is packaged in a heavy duty jacket with Ian Johnstone's original artwork coated in a custom spot gloss. Each LP is housed in a printed inner sleeve and side D contains all three original etchings. Ape's lyrics are spread across the gatefold.

Out of print on CD for almost two decades, Cold Spring are proud to announce the official reissue of a much sought after 'Best Of' set by the acclaimed esoteric experimental pioneers Coil, with 'A Guide For Beginners - The Voice Of Silver' and 'A Guide For Finishers - A Hair Of Gold' being made available together in one deluxe set.

Infinite Fog presents a long-awaited complete version of “Sara Dale's Sensual Massage” OST with 8 exclusive and unheard tracks. Sara Dale's Sensual Massage was a delightful erotic video with a mystic soundtrack by Coil. Quite unusual for the band dreamy ambient, almost spa-relaxed soft harmonies, bland tribal rhythms, chimes, and birdsong but still with dark mysterious and inimitable Coil musick's charm. However, the second part of the album explores more rhythmic structures that remind 'Gay Man's Guide...' soundtrack.

Besides the OST recordings, the edition includes bonus tracks from the "Basilisk prod.'s" era: “Theme From Blue”, and grandiose "The Hills Are Alive" so badly wanted on vinyl. Artwork by Steven Stapleton. Mastering by Martin Bowes.

· Reissued for the first time in over 20 years, for the first time on double LP with the original, unedited tracks in vinyl format. · Completely remastered and restored audio and artwork. · Side D of the double LP includes vinyl etching art: pine tree branches rendered by the band in Bryce software in the 90s for the original album art.

* Available in three formats: Black Vinyl, Clear Vinyl, and 2CD * Brilliantly chaotic and outrageously rhythmic material from 1993-1996, originally meant as the follow-up to “Love’s Secret Domain” * “The New Backwards” effectively became the final official Coil studio release of all new material whilst Peter was still alive * Unlike the 2008 edition, the KontaktAudio edition contains the titlesong 'Backwards' * Mastered by Grammy nominated Jessica Thompson * Artwork by Ian Johnstone, licensed by The Estate of Ian Johnstone * 2CD version contains 8 additional tracks of previously unheard material from the same sessions * 2CD featured image below“The New Backwards” was conceived by Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson in 2007, revisiting stray tracks which hadn’t seemed to gel with the material he had chosen for the more somber “Ape of Naples” from 2005, Coil’s initial posthumous release, a sort of requiem and a kiss-goodbye to his then recently deceased partner John Balance. Significantly different to its sister release, this album collects the brilliantly chaotic and outrageously rhythmic material from the original sessions for the album that was begun as early as 1993 and had originally been conceptualised as the follow-up to “Love’s Secret Domain”. These songs are as diverse and wild as the places they originated from, partly infamously spawned in Sharon Tate’s former home in the Hollywood Hills, the Nine Inch Nails home base in New Orleans and London’s Swanyard, remixed and restructured with the help of long-term friend Danny Hyde in Thailand, this collection has its own unique flow and an atmosphere not found on any other Coil release. Both “ayor” and “Backwards” had by the time the album was first released already become favourites in Coil’s manic live performances. Some of the other tracks had only leaked in demo versions and are here presented updated and polished as Christopherson and Hyde intended them to be heard. It is interesting to consider Balance’s vocal contributions, too. Whilst on the albums Coil did release at the time this material was first put aside (“Black Light District” and “ElpH”) his voice is all but absent, his vocal performances and his lyric writing here are arguably more closely indebted to the previous “Love’s Secret Domain” era, especially the epic “Copacaballa” is noteworthy in that respect. The New Backwards” effectively became the final official Coil studio release of all new material whilst Peter was still alive and is here presented for the first time fully supervised by Danny Hyde, its co-creator. The stunning cover uses a detail from artist Ian Johnstone’s “Cubic Raven” painting, licensed from the estate of IJ.. It is high time to rediscover this timeless album with the Infinite Fog release boasting eight further tracks of previously unheard material from the same sessions, rough working stages and surprising remixes which will surely delight the dedicated Coil archaeologists, as they shine yet another light on the creative process and on what could have been. Recorded at Swanyard, London and at Nothing Studios, New Orleans, 1996. Thanks to everyone there, especially Trent Reznor who made it all possible. Written & Produced by Coil & Danny Hyde. Remixed by Peter Christopherson & Danny Hyde, Bangkok 2007. For that session Coil were: Peter Christopherson, Jhonn Balance & Drew McDowall. Mastered by Jessica Thompson. Front artwork by Ian Johnstone. Artwork licensed from The Estate of Ian Johnstone. Layout Cold Graves and Oleg Galay.

“The Ape of Naples” is a deeply emotional and uniquely rewarding album. In its immediate accessibility it is somewhat reminiscent of Coil’s mid-1980s classic “Horse Rotorvator” sharing that album’s wild variety of sounds and styles as well as its overriding sombre mood. Originally released in 2005 and in many ways the band’s ultimate swan song, it is now considered one of the go-to albums for introducing new listeners to the unparalleled magick of Coil. Compiled and released by Peter Christopherson and Danny Hyde one year after Jhonn Balance’s tragic deadly fall, it includes reworkings of the live favourite “Amethyst Deceivers” and “Love Secret’s Domain”‘s “Teenage Lightning” as well as several songs originally intended for the ill-fated “Backwards” album like the haunting and preminiscent “Fire of the Mind” and the superb “Amber Rain”. Other tracks were created using unfinished song ideas from around “Backwards”, sampling tiny bits of Balance’s live vocals from songs only ever performed in concert once like “Triple Sun”. Using the lyrics of the theme tune for the 1970s BBC sit com series “Are you being served?” for the unbelievably haunting “Going up”, this album’s final track and the last song Coil ever performed live, is maybe the most poignant example of Balance’s and Christopherson’s method of turning base matter into pure sound gold, and like the title of the album, derived from an imaginary adult video an equally fine example of the often underappreciated humour of the boys.

Christopherson with the help of long-term sound wizard Danny Hyde and using some of the talent of Coil touring members managed to craft an album which feels and flows like a true Coil classic.

The turn of the millennium ushered in an apex visionary phase for English esoteric duo Coil. Relocating from the city to the coastal quiet of Westonsuper-Mare freed them to follow even more fringe obsessions, fully untethered from peer influence. During a single six-month stretch in 2000 they released the devious underworld sequel to Music To Play In The Dark, arcane drone summit Queens Of The Circulating Library, and a malevolent hour-long synthesizer exorcism prophetically titled Constant Shallowness Leads To Evil. This latter work remains one of the group's most miasmic and mind-expanding creations, on par with Time Machines - a sustained divination of shuddering, psychoactive noise, rippling with the motion sickness of an all-seeing eye. Thighpaulsandra characterizes the album as "an exercise in brutality," born from a thorny patch of his Serge modular unit that Peter "Sleazy" Christopherson found entrancing. Processing this sliver of electronics into a ravaged labyrinth was a trial and error process, aided by Christopherson's visual sense of sound, stretching and manipulating it for maximum spatial disorientating. Frequencies nauseously crawl across the stereo field, burrowing into the ear like a sinister brainwashing experiment. An outlier / centerpiece is the 13-minute alien tribalist sea shanty, "I Am The Green Child," guided by John Balance's sung-spoken free verse concerning vengeance, oblivion, and insanity, culminating in the memorable refrain, "We're swimming in a sea of occidental vomit." But the rest of the record seethes in unhinged instrumental chaos, divided into 18 micro-movements of a composition called "Tunnel Of Goats." Intended to scramble the functionality of a CD player's shuffle mode, the piece throbs, thrashes, and flatlines in compressed frenzies of twisted synthesis, at the threshold of some bottomless purgatory, forbidding and unknown.

“The New Backwards” was conceived by Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson in 2007, revisiting stray tracks which hadn’t seemed to gel with the material he had chosen for the more somber “Ape of Naples” from 2005, Coil’s initial posthumous release, a sort of requiem and a kiss-goodbye to his then recently deceased partner John Balance.

Significantly different to its sister release, this album collects the brilliantly chaotic and outrageously rhythmic material from the original sessions for the album that was begun as early as 1993 and had originally been conceptualised as the follow-up to “Love’s Secret Domain”. These songs are as diverse and wild as the places they originated from, partly infamously spawned in Sharon Tate’s former home in the Hollywood Hills, the Nine Inch Nails home base in New Orleans and London’s Swanyard, remixed and restructured with the help of long-term friend Danny Hyde in Thailand, this collection has its own unique flow and an atmosphere not found on any other Coil release.

Both “ayor” and “Backwards” had by the time the album was first released already become favourites in Coil’s manic live performances. Some of the other tracks had only leaked in demo versions and are here presented updated and polished as Christopherson and Hyde intended them to be heard. It is interesting to consider Balance’s vocal contributions, too. Whilst on the albums Coil did release at the time this material was first put aside (“Black Light District” and “ElpH”) his voice is all but absent, his vocal performances and his lyric writing here are arguably more closely indebted to the previous “Love’s Secret Domain” era, especially the epic “Copacaballa” is noteworthy in that respect. The New Backwards” effectively became the final official Coil studio release of all new material whilst Peter was still alive and is here presented for the first time fully supervised by Danny Hyde, its co-creator. The stunning cover uses a detail from artist Ian Johnstone’s “Cubic Raven” painting, licensed from the estate of IJ..

It is high time to rediscover this timeless album with the Infinite Fog release boasting eight further tracks of previously unheard material from the same sessions, rough working stages and surprising remixes which will surely delight the dedicated Coil archaeologists, as they shine yet another light on the creative process and on what could have been.

Recorded at Swanyard, London and at Nothing Studios, New Orleans, 1996. Thanks to everyone there, especially Trent Reznor who made it all possible. Written & Produced by Coil & Danny Hyde. Remixed by Peter Christopherson & Danny Hyde, Bangkok 2007. For that session Coil were: Peter Christopherson, Jhonn Balance & Drew McDowall. Mastered by Jessica Thompson. Front artwork by Ian Johnstone. Artwork licensed from The Estate of Ian Johnstone. Layout Cold Graves and Oleg Galay.

Attention: To avoid later mournings, we want to inform you that picture “vinyl” is no audiophile format, it’s a collectible format. Especially for music like Coil with it’s wide stereo spread, swirling high frequencies and deep dronning basses. The more stereo and bass, the wider and deeper the grooves have to be, to provide all information to the needle. But picture discs have only a very thin plastic-foil over the pictures, it’s no vinyl, just plastic, similar to pet bottles. On picture “vinyl” can not be pressed so deep and wide grooves, that it would sound as well as a real vinyl. That’s the same for ALL picture LPs, not only Coil.

General conclusion: Of course our picture LP editions are enjoyable for listening too! But to get the best sound quality, you should buy black or any coloured transparent vinyl, those sound best. For your collection just buy whatever you think looks best.

“The New Backwards” was conceived by Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson in 2007, revisiting stray tracks which hadn’t seemed to gel with the material he had chosen for the more somber “Ape of Naples” from 2005, Coil’s initial posthumous release, a sort of requiem and a kiss-goodbye to his then recently deceased partner John Balance.

Significantly different to its sister release, this album collects the brilliantly chaotic and outrageously rhythmic material from the original sessions for the album that was begun as early as 1993 and had originally been conceptualised as the follow-up to “Love’s Secret Domain”. These songs are as diverse and wild as the places they originated from, partly infamously spawned in Sharon Tate’s former home in the Hollywood Hills, the Nine Inch Nails home base in New Orleans and London’s Swanyard, remixed and restructured with the help of long-term friend Danny Hyde in Thailand, this collection has its own unique flow and an atmosphere not found on any other Coil release.

Both “ayor” and “Backwards” had by the time the album was first released already become favourites in Coil’s manic live performances. Some of the other tracks had only leaked in demo versions and are here presented updated and polished as Christopherson and Hyde intended them to be heard. It is interesting to consider Balance’s vocal contributions, too. Whilst on the albums Coil did release at the time this material was first put aside (“Black Light District” and “ElpH”) his voice is all but absent, his vocal performances and his lyric writing here are arguably more closely indebted to the previous “Love’s Secret Domain” era, especially the epic “Copacaballa” is noteworthy in that respect. The New Backwards” effectively became the final official Coil studio release of all new material whilst Peter was still alive and is here presented for the first time fully supervised by Danny Hyde, its co-creator. The stunning cover uses a detail from artist Ian Johnstone’s “Cubic Raven” painting, licensed from the estate of IJ..

It is high time to rediscover this timeless album now!

Recorded at Swanyard, London and at Nothing Studios, New Orleans, 1996. Thanks to everyone there, especially Trent Reznor who made it all possible. Written & Produced by Coil & Danny Hyde. Remixed by Peter Christopherson & Danny Hyde, Bangkok 2007. For that session Coil were: Peter Christopherson, Jhonn Balance & Drew McDowall. Mastered by Jessica Thompson. Front artwork by Ian Johnstone. Artwork licensed from The Estate of Ian Johnstone. Layout Cold Graves and Oleg Galay.

Golden vinyl. Slightly Stuffed corners. 2022 reissue. With poster. Record 2 is slightly warped, other records are NM.

Still in shrink, but opened, with hype sticker. Cover with bumped corner

Cover with sticker residue on the front

Cover with slightly bumped corners and seam damage on top spine.