Coil ‎– Musick To Play In The Dark

Absolutely outstanding album. One of my all time favourites.

Check out Michael Bundt's Just Landed Comsic Kid. Coil are definitely paying homage!

Perhaps the best album ever.

this is a flawed masterpiece and one of my personal favourite records of all time.

it's not that the material on the disc is particularly strong; in fact, it's really nothing special if measured in terms of it's complexity, abstraction or novelty. the brilliant part of this disc is the production in all of it's consistently dreary, hopeless, nihilist splendour. the conceptual theme is one of moon music, meaning music designed specifically to be listened to by, well, lunatics - those who live by the glow of the moon.

this theme is maintained through a few techniques, the most dominant, excluding perhaps the reliance on slow tempos and modified vocals, being a reliance on synthesizer parts that are drenched in both distortion and reverb. sending a string patch through a quadrafuzz is indeed a wonderful idea and the record makes excellent use of this oft-ignored truth, crafting often swirling eulogies that cut right through the technological fog and deep into some kind of impossible state of emotion.

another employed technique to maintain the surreal, esoteric feel of the record is the prevalence of long sections of isolated digital effects experiments. the favourite source material would be a vocal sound: a tap on the mike, a phrase or even just a few unusual sounds.

the first track is a post-modern pagan obituary, the second is a cover of a tangerine dream track, the third is some kind of twisted waltz and the last track is a psychedelic pop song, all brilliant in their intent and consistent in their atmosphere. the flaw comes in the 4th and 5th tracks...

coil made this error at least a dozen times. what they've done is cram two unrelated songs into the middle of a concept record because they wanted to release the tracks but weren't sure where else to release them. but, the tracks just don't work...

the fourth track is some kind of a twisted hymn, going on for ten minutes. it's clearly quite consciously written and quite well at that, but the lyrical aspect is just not what i want to hear coming from my speakers all night. the fifth track is a pointless masturbatory exercise and was probably little more than the result of somebody playing with a new toy for the first time.

excluding these two flaws - which the mp3 age makes virtually irrelevant - this album is an essential listen for anybody into psychedelic music through however many orders of separation. the series was initially not received very well by coil fans jonesing for more idm, but it may ultimately age better than much of coil's other work.

Is this it,the best Coil record there is?Quite possibly.Although Volume 2 is also brilliant this has more variety.
It begins with dark,sweeping synth lines on 'Are You Shivering?' which are joined by stuttering vocals and dripping sounds before John Balance's trademark voice comes in,speaking of being 'drowned in gold' and 'dreams of vitality'.Supposedly,this song is about taking MDMA(a drug used in ecstasy)when your teeth chatter and eyeballs shake.The song finishes with the line that perfectly sums up the LP:
'This is moon musick,in the light of the moon'.
The second track is the majestic 'Red Birds Will Fly Out of the East and Destroy Paris in a Night',based on a Nostradumus prophecy.It's an instrumental,very dancey(in a Coil way)and clocks in at about 13 minutes.
Track three is 'Red Queen',a dissection of celebrity.It's a piano-led track with a sound that wouldn't be out of place in a classy bar.That is,until Balance's spoken vocals come in again:'what are you going to do,if they don't believe you?'.Another long track around 10 minutes.
The next track is 'Broccoli',an unusual song in that it feature Peter Christopherson on vocals.The feel is very minimal;low synths and melancholic backing vocals.The lyrics are Johns and talk about vegetables and death(in a non-morbid way):'wise words from the departing,always eat your greens.'
Track 5,'Strange Birds'is another lyricless piece apart from the one line:'one day your eggs will hatch,and some very strange birds are going to emerge.'The track has weird bird and animal calls mixed in with synths and drones.Always reminds me of a swampy rainforest.
The final track is the epic 'The Dreamer is Still Asleep'.It's lyrics centre on lucid dreaming and sleep,and according to Coil it's also about William Blake(the poet).
A music box melody intwines with a one-note bass line and ethereal backing vocals.The effect is beautiful,definatly musick to play in the dark.
Most of the tracks also have strange glitching clicks in bizarre(and perhaps random)rhythyms which add to the mystery.So,in conclusion,this probably is the best Coil record and(in my humble opinion)possibly the best record ever written.