Coil – Love's Secret Domain

Coil's most easily accessible album, yet so exotic and sophisticated, not exactly "accessible" in the sense of logically comprehensible, this is insane as usual with Coil but reserves a technoid element that keeps less abstract and more organic, more close to body music. In a way i see this as the summary from 90's in the peculiar way only Coil could imagine it, the envisioned prelude of an era. This is what Psychic TV was trying to do by emulating psychodelic trance, only he never achieved the profundity or twisted form this album has, his thing was merely entertainment, this a manifesto. The young spirit of a renewed electronica era is present here. Techno, along with breakbeats, hip-hop, glitch, psy-trance and industrial gather together in bathed colored cream of pure sonic speculation.

Whatever these guys were deep into, left hand path, sexual experiments, aural magic, ritualization and altering conscience through substances they certainly went far away, perhaps too far, after all there are places you should be careful to step in, not knowing what or how to manage the way it will affect your spirit. But, the music is certainly the redeeming point in their bet. They captured something, very intriguing and strange. Love secret´s domain is aural poetry, ambiguous and ethereal, a catch in between dimensions unknown.

The album has all the palette of moods and color sounds you can imagine, psychodelic electronics permeated by an aura of mystery and darkness, tingly colored electronica, and the most strange sequences you can imagine in layer after layer of altered sounds. At times euphoric, like in "Teenage lightning", at times demented "Things happen", at times meditative "Where even the darkness is something to see", ritualistic like "Windowpane" or profoundly trance inducing like "Further back and faster", inmensely insane as "chaostrophy" (the trendy magic bypass from the 90s in which many lost more than their heads) and melancholic like "Dark river".

This album is pure blasphemy, an agnostic path of spiritual tour de force, very exquisite electronica for true coinosseurs. It has aged well, even though it is almost 30 years old, it speaks volumes of its quality. Finally, the video made to celebrate album´s title will certainly shock many, i think it pretty well represents the spirit of the whole album, dyonisiac music, the torment for knowledge engenders true monsters, glad we had Coil who left some testimony about the beauty of this monstrosity.

Maybe the finest pressing of all the releases (vinyl or otherwise). Transcendental music. 10/10. If you are looking for a copy, look here.

This is a legendary lost gem of the 90's. Coil influenced Autechre, Boards of Canada, & many other prominent electronic artists with this masterpiece of an album. If you're looking for a super innovative, highly influential electronic album look no further. This was before the whole Protools revolution & many of the loops on this album were cut from the actual sound reels & re-taped by hand. Key tracks include: Windowpane, The Snow, Further Back & Faster, Chaostrophy, & Even Where The Darkness Is Something To See.