REVIEWS

Coil
Black Antlers

Threshold House

Posted: Thursday, December 07, 2006
By: Matthew Johnson
Features Editor

In its first incarnation, Black Antlers was a CD-R of "works in progress" sold during the 2004 tour that preceded Coil's last album, The Ape of Naples. Now available in a standard edition, these remixed and remastered tracks represent some of Coil's last work and are a perfect companion to the "official" album. Though widely acclaimed for their sonic experimentations, much of what set Coil apart from similar avant-garde electronic acts was the genuine human emotion embodied by vocalist Jhonn Balance, and nowhere is that melancholy more in evidence than on this album's version of the traditional British lullaby "All the Pretty Little Horses," set here to an arrangement of soft marimbas and restrained bits of studio weirdness. Nearly as sad is "The Gimp (Sometimes)," with such lyrics as "Sometimes I hurt myself / Sometimes I hate myself" taking on new, heartbreaking significance in light of Balance's tragic death in 2004. A stripped-down "10th Birthday Version" of the classic "Teenage Lightning" is similarly sorrowful, with the distorted techno funk of the original largely replaced by soft pianos, marimbas, and percussive snippets of sampled voice, giving the brass melody line a mournful prominence. Representing Coil's more psychedelic side is "Sex with Sun Ra," which appears in two parts and features a rambling account of an imaginary encounter with the titular cosmic jazz artist derived partly from Ra's own mystical pronouncements. "Part One – Saturnalia" is set to unpredictable but primarily organic percussion, while "Part Two – Sigillaricia" is a more processed, mechanized version laced with studio effects. A bonus disc includes two tracks not present on the original version; "Departed" is a slowly evolving industrial ambient piece, while "Things We Never Had" is a remixed soundscape arranged from selected elements from the first disc. Neither is quite as good as the material from the original release, but the remastered material and exquisite gatefold sleeve are enough to make this a worthwhile purchase even if you were lucky enough to get a copy of the limited CD-R edition.