Coil’s debut live show, proper, and its follow-up, are finally available on 2LP via Thighpaulsandra’s label, Retractor - nearly 2 hours in the mesmerising, in-the-moment presence of their era’s most fêted, esoteric unit.
In the glistening wake of a reissue to ‘Black Antlers’ comes this documentation of Jhonn Balance, Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson, Thighpaulsandra and Ossian Brown, performing live as Coil at the behest of fellow psychonaut Julian Cope for his 2-day event ‘Cornucopea’ at The Royal Festival Hall, South Bank, London, April 2nd 2000, and a few months later at Sónar Festival, Barcelona. Originally issued on 2CD in summer 2003, the London portion is also similar to Coil Presents Time Machines - a bonus disc to ‘Musick To Play in the Dark Vol.2’ - with the whole set representing the first genuine Coil live effort, give or take or few “abortive” early attempts in the early 1980s.
Bedecked in “fluffy polar Teletubby suits” designed by Jhonn with Nicola Bowery (wife and creative partner of Leigh Bowery) and Ossian Brown, the band would yield a more sensuously liquified iteration of the Time Machines set, already regarded as one of their trippiest, and here smudged to a deeply narcotic efficacy that must have sounded incredible in situ, as it does on the recording, with John’s reserved vox laced to sustained, helical spumes of skin-crackling electronics on the London part. The Sónar recording differs in its more broken structure, allowing for pulsating rhythms rather than weightless, deferred gratification, and leading into pockets of black hole absorption and ultimately a manic climax.
