COIL NEWS
19th October, 1997

News from the Horse's Mouth:

  • They are no releases until the New Era now as World Serpent work that way. In the Spring there will be the New ELpH album. An ELpH 7" picture disc. A limited vinyl release of Transparent. The Spring Equinox COIL single which was recorded this last Spring Equinox. There are to be 4 singles to be released a year after they were recorded and then the material is also being worked on for an album release.
  • C93/COIL/NWW/Bone album is due out in January. Its called "Foxtrot" and is on a label I've set up especially called Great God Pan. (GGP) All tracks are previously unreleased except for Heartworms which also appears and has been redically remastered.
  • We will be editing the Nothing album for a Late Spring release. I have NO idea what I am calling it. I have confused myself with all the things flying round in my head.
  • A compilation album called "Eschatology" is being compiled for next year. I have decided that Eskaton can be spelt Eschaton as well. We thought long and hard about the spelling when we devised the name and have loosened up about it now.
  • We met up with Labradford at a secret gig they performed in an abandoned synagog in Whitechapel, East London and rekindled the idea of working together as yet another project.
  • Eskaton are releasing an album project originated by John Everall of Sentrax Records. Its called "Doctrine of Signs" by ALOGON. The line-up of Alogon is John Everall, Theresa Mills, James Plotkin, Little Annie (Anxiety), Karl Blake and John Balance. The album was mostly recorded in New York around the time of the C93 gigs with additional material added later including my contributions.
  • We are working with Chris and Cosey towards a track or two on a forthcoming CORE project.
  • Vicki Bennett,our friend and sometime Mailorder person and Queen of Easy Listening cut-up madness group People Like Us was hit and seriously injured by a car in Brighton a few weeks ago. Despite multiple breaks and fractures she IS OK and we wish her all the very best in her recovery. She is in for the duration. If anyone wants to send her cards or anything to cheer her up and keep her mind occupied please send to. Vicki Bennett. Level 10. Royal Sussex County Hospital. Easton Road. Brighton. BN2 5BE UK.
  • Transparent is of course out now and available through World Serpent in finer shops world wide.
Paul at Twin Tub and Beaver lets us know:
    "The only confirmed info on the Coil release on Twin Tub and Beaver is that it will be a 10" limited to 333 copies, 300 on colored vinyl in picture sleeves and 33 on a different color in special packaging. The tracks will be previously unreleased but their titles are not know yet."
14th July, 1997

Balance restored - John Balance has returned after treatment of his alcoholism and is doing fine and passes on love and blessings to all fans and friends and has passed along the following info:

  • A new ELpH album is due early fall.
  • "Heartworms" is being released as part of a mini-album/long single with tracks by Current 93, Nurse With Wound and another Pete Bog/ Steven Stapleton track.
  • Blue Rats is being put out as a single by a label called Twin Tub and Beaver.
  • The original COIL / Zos Kia tape "Transparent" is being released as a CD His-Storical re-issue.
  • A CD called Time Machines is due for release on the Eskaton label. John says, "This mysterious and extremely minimal release has been lined up for some time while we mused and pondered its place in our lives."
  • John and Peter still have to edit the new Nothing album, which has been held up for countless reasons. They are working out and negotiating with various remixer friends and aquaintances to do stuff for the remix album we hope will spin off from the Nothing album, as well as they are thinking of sticking with and using the title "International Dark Skies" for this project. "I'm not letting a bad TV program change my vision of the world."
  • And then there were four... Bill Breeze has joined COIL as an official member. Mr Breeze astounded Coil with his electric viola playing when he came and recorded a piece with us the day after the London Current 93 concert.
10th May, 1997

  • OUT NOW finally is Unnatural History volume III (Joyful Participation in the Sorrows of the World). This new compilation is out on Threshold House via World Serpent in the UK and can be ordered through various on-line stores. This collection compiles 10 tracks, from songs as recent as "Lost Rivers of London" and as old as the Commercial Music tracks from Hellraiser.

  • John recently appeared on stage at Current 93's concert in London on May 3rd. Here, he both read a passage before the concert and played his Chapman Stick Bass durin "Christ and the Pale Queens".

  • Coil page co-writer Jon Whitney has just returned from London and from an Interview with Coil, which will shortly be posted here in its entirety.

  • Current projects in the work are a single titled "Sex with Sun Ra" and a full length disc from Wormsine. Still no word yet on a Nothing release. Talks continue...
19th April, 1997

  • OUT NOW from World Serpent is "Terra Serpentis", a double CD with exclusive tracks from all current World Serpent artists. The Coil track for this compilation is "Heart Worms".
  • Sleazy just recently shot a video for the Belgian group K's Choice.
  • Unnatural History 3 is apparently in the process of being made right now. There are many speculations of tracklisting, but nothing is known yet officially.

    Possible tracks may or may not include any of the following:
    Music for Commercials, Panic 12" version, Baby Food, Feeder, Anal Staircase orig. version, ELph stuff from the 10", If it wasn't wolves, First Dark Ride, A Journey To Avebury soundtrack(unreleased), The Wheel, Keelhauler, Wrong Eye, Scope, Meaning What Exactly?, Lost Rivers of London, and Neither His Nor Yours.

15th January, 1997

  • OUT NOW from Sentrax/Rawkus is a Tactile remix album entitled RECURRENCE & INTERVENTION, featuring a remix by Coil along with mixes by Scorn, 0 (Panasonic), James Plotkin, Zoviet France and others. A limited edition while label 12" featuring the Coil, Scorn and 0 mixes was released last October as promotion for the album. John Everall, label manager for Sentrax is currently planning a Coil biography by going through old archives and letters.
  • John and Sleazy just got back from spending New Years in Vietnam and Thailand.
  • The first album in Coil's contract with Trent Reznor's Nothing Records was completed at Reznor's New Orleans studio late last year and is due for release in the spring. Proposed titles for this release have included INTERNATIONAL DARK SKIES, BACKWARDS and GOD PLEASE FUCK MY MIND FOR GOOD, but it's not clear what the final choice is going to be. All that's known for sure is that I.D.S. will not be used so as to avoid confusion with the American television show Dark Skies. It's also not known at this time whether or not Nothing will be licensing any of the backcatalogue for North American release.
    NOTE: Trent Reznor did not play on it, did not co-produce it nor write any material for it.
    Says Balance, "We produced it ourselves with Danny Hyde as engineer and with excellent help,complete co-operation and enormous investment of time, energy and genuine enthusiasm from all the people at Hot Snakes studio. In particular Chris Vrenna who helped us iron out technical stuff, Brian the studio manager who kept it running smoothly, and of course Trent himself,who kept out of our way while letting us loose in his secret domain."
  • Rawkus Records, a NYC based label that has recently issued the backcatalogue of the UK isolationist/dark ambient label Sentrax (Tactile, Lull, etc.) in North America, will in fact not be releasing a disc by Coil vs. Elph in late February as publicized in Billboard Magazine and Ice on line. This uncompleted album will likely not see the light of day until late spring 1997 at the earliest.
  • REMIX NEWS
    • The Coil vs. Download rumor is just that - a rumour. Apparently nothing has been remixed, reworked, nor retouched on either side of the camps. If this turns into anything more, you'll know here.
    • John Balance says "Yes,we are going to be working with Autechre this year.I am setting up a series of releases to be called INTERCOURSE..1 2 and 3 etc. Various labels, various contexts and connections. We were out in Thailand with Steve Beckett,head of Warp and it seems that it will happen soon-ish rather than later-ish. As far as a Download vs.Coil remix thing goes.We are thinking about it. But it will be later this year if at all,because we have other commitments and a pretty full on schedule of releases planned. I don't think we are going to be remixing NIN's Perfect Drug single because we were busy recording our new album at Trents studio at the time he originally asked us to and we didn't have the time to do both projects...Nor the energy.
      We are hoping to do something with Labradford soon...part of the Intercourse series.We met up about 6 months ago and discussed it then. We are planning to involve a whole bunch of people in remixing tracks from our new Nothing album including Steven Stapleton of Nurse with Wound,Autechre,Charlie Clouser, and others we havn't asked yet so it would be unfair to speculate on.
  • Still M.I.A.: The World Serpent reissue of LOVE'S SECRET DOMAIN; THE SOUND OF MUSIC dbl-CD of selected soundtrack work; the John Balance/David Tibet/Steven Stapleton collaboration HAUNTED AIR.
  • Also still missing: The Assassins. Peter Lamborn Wilson, Iggy Pop, Anne Clark, Brion Gysin, William S. Burroughs, Ira Cohen, Nicole Blackman and others are accompanied by music from Bill Laswell, Paul Schutze, Techno Animal, Coil and the Master Musicians of Jajouka.
  • We're sad to announce KAOS, John and Sleazy's 14 year old Basenji dog passed away this past Boxing Day (26th December) and deepest sympathies go out to them and Kaos's friend, Dingo.
All of this information, is of course subject to change at any time.