ELpH vs. Coil, "Worship the Glitch"

Overall impression: good. Coil confronts themselves once again, or rather the sometimes accidental results from their equipment (from Coil site at Brainwashed - "ELpH is the entity Coil use to describe what musical compositions come out of the equipment that are sometimes unrehearsed or consciously thought of." ) This album is essentially a collection of minimal instrumental sound pieces, not to say that the tracks are random noise, but rather snippets of "glitch" that Coil often use throughout their work. Bits and pieces of sound, some electronic/samples and some acoustic, but all often heavily effected and/or affected via computer. A few highlights: the 3 "Halliwell Hammers" tracks are the most structured and "song-like", with their beautiful echoing bell-like melodies and "Bism" is a minimal but roomy ambient track with a gentle white noise and a far away water and calling of birds. Subtle but relaxing, "Worship the Glitch" is not my favorite disc from Coil, but is a welcome addition to my Coil collection that will be listened to every now and then. Very cool mosaic artwork too. As always, this album is unique when compared to Coil's other work, but I'd say it's a first cousin of "Time Machines" and "Coil Presents Black Light District: A Thousand Lights in a Darkened Room", and is similar to various segments of "Unnatural History II" and "Unnatural History III". - Mark Weddle

"Halliwell" refers to the late English playwright Joe Orton's flatmate, [can't remember his first name] Halliwell, who murdered Orton in what one supposes was a fit of jealous rage. Orton and Halliwell were classmates at the Royal Academy of the Dramatic Arts, and after they left the Academy Orton's star began to rise rapidly while Halliwell failed to make much of a mark in the theatre world. One night, apparently, Halliwell took a hammer and bashed Orton's skull in; according to some sources, Halliwell and Orton had been lovers at one time but were no more, and H. was driven to the breaking point by Orton's promiscuous lifestyle (Orton was a toilet-trader) and professional success. Hence the name, "The Halliwell Hammers." - Matthew Weber

"Headphonaut investigators may be interested in a few discoveries myself and a friend of mine have made in Worship the Glitch. Both dark start and ended are the same song. If you listen to the lady singing "...down this dusty road again..." over and over until you auditory memory bank is firmly established, then flip quickly to dark start and you will hear "down this dusty road again" and if you really know ended well, you can actually follow the lady's words through the song. Parts of ended are repeated through the swimming dark start effects. "...for all we know..." ...I once was playing Worship the Glitch on a fine, summer afternoon. It got to track 3 called "Caged Birds" and i walked out into our sunroom and there on the windowsill (read windowpane) was a small bird. I looked at the plump feathery creature and wondered when it was going to fly away. It didn't. It just looked at me curiously. I live in urban Chicago and it is *quite* rare for any bird to have any curiousity in us humans, whether it's a dirty ol' pigeon or not (this was not, it looked like a baby owl). I walked back into the kitchen, got some bread and came back to the sunroom windowsill, where the uncaged bird was still standing. Caged Birds still coming from my room down the hall, mind you. I opened the window, which took considerable strength and noise because they're kinda jammed. Any *normal* bird would definitely have flown away at this time, since my jerky movements would surely have scared it. But this bird just watched me the entire time. With the window open, i reached out and held the bread slice near his or her head and it didn't respond, it just kept looking at me with its large, dark, bulbous eyes. I even pushed the bread slice *against* its head and caused the birdy to move over one step...it *still* didn't fly away...! I had time to have a 10 minute telephone conversation and i came back and it was still there. I even took a photo. Shorty after that, it flew away. I haven't seen him since... perhaps he's seen me, though..." - Noah Jurcin