From Harvey Devoe Thornburg Sent Wed, Nov 18th 1998, 07:12
From Harvey Devoe Thornburg Sent Wed, Nov 18th 1998, 07:12
> > --laerm <xxxxx@xxxxxxxx.xxx> wrote: > > > On Tue, 17 Nov 1998, Charles wrote: > > > >> I know Coil has released a lot... where should I >> start? I've > only heard the Snow EP. Do they have a >> retrospective or "best of" > or greatest tits? > Coil is one of those few artists (like Nurse with Wound) where it's easier to say what to avoid, because they're quite prolific, and virtually all of their releases have been of exceptional quality. Otherwise I end up recommending all their work, which takes too long. What I have that I don't consider to be their best work are "Gold is the Metal", the "Wrong Eye/Scope" single and Coil vs. Elph "Worship the Glitch". The only think I have from their "new" period is Time Machines which is excellent, a great and surprising comeback. Should really get up to speed on the rest of the new stuff... I would start with Horse Rotovator as the "best" of their earliest period, then probably Stolen and Contaminated for the early 90's stuff. Then there are the more ambient/conceptual works, such as How to Destroy Angels, Angelic Conversation, Themes from Hellraiser, and Time Machines. I'll stop here, as I seem to be falling into the trap mentioned above. > > the clostest to a "retrospective" is the _unnatural > history_ > compilations. but as they tend to be > stylistically all over the > place and rare & pricey, > > go for the three albums: _scatology_, _horse > rotorvator_, > and _love's secret domain_. > disappointment will not be found by you. > > Scatalogy and Angelic Conversations are my least favorites. I would > recommend the Unnatural History 1, How to Destroy Angels, Stolen and > Contaminated, Gold is the Metal, Hellraiser themes, Love Secret > Domain, and Horse Rotorvator. They are all good starting points. I > didn't care for the other Unnatural Histories as much, because I > already had alot of the tracks on them, but they may suit you more > since you don't have them. > > Scatalogy is a weak release for them. I don't know why people think > it's that great. Well, "Ubu Noir", "Tenderness of Wolves", "Panic", the cover of "Tainted Love", this was/is pretty great stuff if you ask me. Sure there are a few things which just try to be shocking, but who wasn't up to that in '84? Also from a technical standpoint... a lot of the artists who around '84 started using Fairlights did so as a mask for lack of creative ideas, or as part of attempt to break into the charts. There's an awful lot of mid-80's industrial stuff that I disliked at the time, but I really can't stand now. Coil somehow managed to naturally rise above all this, really exploiting the potential of the sampler w/o falling back on cliches. Some of the Elph stuff didn't do much for me either, > it's ok. > > Speaking of Coil does anyone know if that Autechre/Coil Collaboration > is ever going to come out. It was part of the Intercourse Series. > Sounded pretty cool. I think Labradford and Coil were suppose to > collaborate also. I don't know if the Autechre collaboration would work, given Coil's emphasis on chaos elements vs. Ae's tendency to sound painfully deliberate about everything (though they're getting better) but Labradford... now that's *definitely* something promising. Imagine if they did a cover of "S is for Sleep". And maybe Download if there was time. Isn't Coil > suppose to have a cd on Nothing coming out? Ever since the inception of Nothing, there were plans to release Scatology and Horse Rotovator domestically. Did this happen, or are people still paying the import prices? --Harvey