While it is true that Formless isn't as passionate as Gridlock's early albums, it has a lot of other virtues to showcase.

First, their sound on this album, despite being variative and "formless", is now very mature and stable in quality. It is clear to me that it is scrupulously constructed and refined to the point of being unimprovable.

The cascades are rich and complex, and have multiple layers to them. The tracks don't sound overly similar to each other, but at the same time, they blend seamlessly and convey similar atmosphere in one beautiful flow. The interludes (tracks #3, #7 and #13) serve this purpose as well. This is a sign of a truly cohesive *album*, rather than just an assembly of several good tracks with some fillers mixed in (earlier albums used to give me such a feeling).

Despite some abrasive and glitchy beats Gridlock is known for (which became more IDM-influenced starting with Trace), the melodies on this album make it very calm and soothing overall. Even the more upbeat tracks (Pallid, Displacement, Atomontage, etc.) don't make you bang your head violently to the rhythm or "dance like you're selling nails" (© Venetian Snares) -- quite the opposite, even they are made with thoughtful and careful listening in mind. Lastly, the beautiful ambient epilogue, Done Processing, (which reminds me of both Gridlock's earlier track Under and Aphex Twin's Stone in Focus) is so warm and soothing it could serve as an excellent lullaby.

In conclusion: with their last album, Gridlock has cut down on passion, but gained a lot in craftsmanship and sound richness. This is Gridlock's magnum opus, and one of my favorite experimental electronic music albums to date. Fully recommended to all you who liked the kind of stuff Autechre was doing before LP5 came out.

There's one thing that's seriously lacking on this release, and it's the famous visualization that Cyclo. are showing on their live performances. Think Autechre's Gantz Graf video, only much more minimalistic by nature and hypnotic by effect. You can love it, you can hate it, but you certainly won't forget it.

And without the synesthesia effect provided by the unity of sound and image, especially with priority given to the image, the CD is just mildly musical minimalistic noise stuff. I wouldn't recommend buying it, better save your money and go on a live performance if Ikeda&Nicolai happen to appear in your vicinity.

I don't know what else to say about Coil other than it's one of the most prolific and talented bands in electronic music, ever, period. That's it. You may like it or not, but these guys have influenced on and collaborated with a nice bunch of famous artists, such as Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, David Tibet of Current 93, Steven Stapleton of Nurse With Wound, Boyd Rice of NON, and many others. Their influence on the experimental music stage of the last twenty years (a clear heritage of the legendary Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV) is obvious, and many other artists and bands digging in this area state them and their work as innovative and inspirational.

Now when John Balance is dead and Coil cannot continue their wonderful experiments all we can do is to listen to their godly music and to introduce it to others who haven't got acquainted with it yet, provided Coil's style changed many times as they have explored different directions in electronic music, and almost anyone can find something appealing to him.

If you like classic industrial, then you should check out their 80's works such as 'Scatology' (1984) and the brilliant 'Horse Rotorvator' (1987). Also look for the 'Unnatural History' antology releases which contain many of their early works.

If you're into techno or acid house, be sure to lay your hands over 1991's classic 'Love's Secret Domain', it's follow-up 'Stolen and Contaminated Songs' (1992) and one of their most dancey release ever, 'Windowpane & The Snow' (1995).

Starting from that period (around 1995), their music became more and more experimental up to the point where you can't really define the style of a given release.

Some of them were drawn towards experimental industrial and dark ambient. The highlights here are 'A Thousand Lights in a Darkened Room' (released under the Black Light District alias in 1996) and 'Time Machines' (released under the Time Machines alias in 1998).

Then came the solar cycle EPs -- Spring and Autumn Equinoxes, Summer and Winter Solstices (from spring'98 to winter'98-99), where almost all tracks were done in different styles from droning dark ambient (Moon's Milk, or Under an Unquiet Skull) to neo-folk (the ever-popular Amethyst Deceivers). Later all that EPs were released as 'Moon's Milk (In Four Phases)' (2002), which is a finest addition to any Coil collection, and a very good buy.

If you want soft and melancholic ambient to put your children to sleep with (just kidding!), try 'Astral Disaster' (2000).

One of the most brilliant albums in Coil career was 'Musick to Play in the Dark', volumes one (1999) and two (2000). This one is a masterpiece, an absolutely must-have release for all experimental music lovers in the world. It incorporates Coil's most innovative and beautiful soundscape techniques to date and is extremely complex and atmospheric, although not very 'industrial' and therefore may not appeal to those who are used to Coil's oldschool experiments. Even so, the album's sound is heavily drawn towards more abstract and ambient-alike electronics (and maybe IDM), while it still retains Coil's approach to the sound.

From there on, most of their releases were the recordings of their live appearances from all over the world, sometimes accompanied with tour CDs and CDRs such as 'Constant Shallowness Leads to Evil' (2000) and 'The Remote Viewer' (2002).

The very last Coil studio album (and their last album ever) released more than a year after John Balance's death, is 'The Ape of Naples' (2005), which is another fine piece of music containing some soft, sometimes melancholic and generally friendly to a casual listener songs.

The last release I wanted to point your attention at is 2002's anthology release named 'The Golden Hair With a Voice of Silver', which is recommended to you if you want a more or less complete overview of Coil's entire career in mere 133.5 minutes. It's a good album to start, and a very representative one: if you don't like it, chances are that you are still unable to derive that unearthly pleasure from Coil's magick.

Happy listening.

This album will stand underestimated for long by the vast majority of electronic music listeners, and particularly, hardcore Autechre fans.
Being an offspring mainly from Gantz Graf (and not Draft 7.30, as one could think), it lacks slow and melancholic melodies, shares the same technological approach and victimizes atmosphere in favor of complexity, abstractness and wild braindance drive.
While “Untilted” is definitely NOT among the best Ae's albums, it still is the very innovation in music of XXI century, not being another “remix for cash”.
So, my ratings are:
3/5 among all other Ae's albums;
4.7/5 in nowadays experimental electronic, overall.

It's a great pity some hardcore fans don't accept Geogaddi. This is a new level of BoC music, and it's much higher than ever before! Not a single one-synth melodie, not a single mellow birdie-singing trackie, yes. Who said Geogaddi lacks the atmosphere of MHtRtC? Well, the atmosphere exists, but it is different from all the previous major releases by BoC. It may be disappointing to someone, but it definately isn't worse than before. The technique of almost every track (and especially Gyroscope) is so complex and brilliant that noone (except Autechre, maybe — but this is not their profile) could ever repeat it.
Come and think, if BoC released ONE MORE MHtRtC-like release, could that be called a progress?

The first track, Gantz Graf, is one of the most complex things ever made by the band of musicians. It's rhythm is hypnotic, yet pounding, totally smashing the brain to the ground. The first minute cleans the head pretty well, much like the soft but cold needle-like rain.

Other two tracks are not such complicated, but rather cool anyways, Dial makes me think of some crazy pianist breaking loose in front of his instrument, and Cap IV resembles me of Lentic Catachresis and Under BOAC with their tendency to speed up progressively till the end of the track.

I recomment this to all you who aren't afraid of listening to different experiments in electronic music.

The Gantz Graf video is essential to demoscene freaks and other 3D-art lovers. Alex Rutterford made one of the most adequate IDM videos in the history, I think. There couldn't be more adequate video for this track, for example. :)