A Thousand Lights in a Darkened Roomby john siddique of jowonio productions
This like all coil recordings finds the coil people further exploring
eschatology, and sounding unlike anything else and still with that quality
of space that can only be coil. It is a world of high steel freeway tones
and rhythm that change so subtly that is only at the end of the daydream
lull that one finds the tune has almost passed. This is not to say it is
boring rather that like the best film soundtracks there is a transparency
to the film of your emotions, though those emotions are guided by coil's
little hooks into their worldscape.
Black Light District sees the usual coil team helped out by some old and
new friends and together they reach back to the elemental song structures
of Scatology and Horse Rotorvator, and these constructions applied to the
formless unwinding of textures and sound that has typified their
incarnation as Elph. The result is enigmatic and furthers the deep
listening experiments begun on Love's Secret Domain to such an extent that
each play sounds like a different lp, it is different because with each
turn we are different.
The fluidity of the tracks is parenthesised by the 2 opening tracks
Unprepared Piano and Red Skeletons, and the final track Chalice. The
opening two are an uncentred piano with bass weirdness and a scannerish set
of phone samples between a couple who's relationship is over and in pain.
These are threaded over a plunky disorienting gentle sound pattern. The
other pieces leading from this discomfort to Chalice and a sense of peace
are a journey over clanking distortions, half remembered bits of "Tubular
Bells" and even some vocals. Chalice which could easily be the sister piece
to Current 93's Where The Long Shadows Fall, is a spiritual arrival where
delicate chanting and long shifting tones pierce some quiet part of the
self into a fluttering. The circle (spiral) begun with the scatology lp
closes and the darkness has never seemed so bright.
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