Coil
The Ape of Naples

December 2, 2005

Cover Image

BUY@THRESHOLD HOUSE

TH CD Threshold House THRESH2

  1. Fire of the Mind - [MP3]
  2. The Last Amethyst Deceiver - [MP3]
  3. Tattooed Man - [MP3]
  4. Triple Sun - [MP3]
  5. It's In My Blood - [MP3]
  6. I Don't Get It - [MP3]
  7. Heaven's Blade - [MP3]
  8. Cold Cell - [MP3]
  9. Teenage Lightning 2005 - [MP3]
  10. Amber Rain - [MP3]
  11. Going Up - [MP3]

February 26, 2008

Cover Image

US LPx4 Important IMPREC174

side a

  1. Fire of the Mind - [MP3]
  2. The Last Amethyst Deceiver - [MP3]
  3. Tattooed Man - [MP3]

side c

  1. Triple Sun - [MP3]
  2. It's In My Blood - [MP3]
  3. I Don't Get It - [MP3]
  4. Heaven's Blade - [MP3]
  5. Cold Cell - [MP3]

side e

  1. Teenage Lightning 2005 - [MP3]
  2. Amber Rain - [MP3]
  3. Going Up - [MP3]

side g

  1. Careful What You Wish For - [THBKK4] [MP3]
  2. Nature Is a Language - [THBKK4]
  3. Algerian Basses - [THBKK4]

side h

  1. Copacaballa - [THBKK4] [MP3]
  2. Paint Me As a Dead Soul - [THBKK4]
  3. Princess Margaret's Man in the D'jamalfna - [THBKK4] [MP3]

2006 / 2008

Cover Image

UK LP ACETATE x3 Threshold House "RACING GREEN" edition

side a

  1. Fire of the Mind - [MP3]
  2. The Last Amethyst Deceiver - [MP3]
  3. Tattooed Man - [MP3]

side c

  1. Triple Sun - [MP3]
  2. It's In My Blood - [MP3]
  3. I Don't Get It - [MP3]
  4. Heaven's Blade - [MP3]
  5. Cold Cell - [MP3]

side e

  1. Teenage Lightning 2005 - [MP3]
  2. Amber Rain - [MP3]
  3. Going Up - [MP3]

John Balance
Peter Christopherson
Drew McDowall
Thighpaulsandra
Ossian Brown - Synths & Sensibility
Danny Hyde - production
Cliff Stapleton - hurdy gurdy
Tom Edwards - good vibes
Mike York - pipes, duduk
Francois Testory - vocals on "Going Up"
Mark Godwin - mastering
Ian Johnstone - artwork

Recorded at Swanyard, London and at Nothing Studios, New Orleans, 1996.
"Thanks to everyone there, especially Trent Reznor who made it all possible."
This album was also released as a download available in FLAC, MP3 and AAC via thresholdhouse.com.
Vinyl box limited to 1200 copies.
The Racing Green edition consists of three one-sided acetates in a wooden box, handmade and painted by Ian Johnstone. The initial 13 copies were completed in 2006, the remaining 10 in 2008 (box open, box back).

Amber Rain

Amber rain is beautiful but wrong
Caught between weak and being strong
It seems these days the weaker ones survive
What an awful way to find out you're alive

A dull warm red water falls
Flowing down to the sea
Where deeper darker waters wait for me

I don't expect I'll ever understand
How life just trickled through my hand

Cold Cell

This is apparently an English rendering of a Russian convicts' prayer.

O Lord, save my sinful soul
From local punishment
From the far-away zone
From being frisked
From the tall fence
From the severe prosecutor
From the Devil or from the devil owner
From small rations
From dirty water
From steel handcuffs
From hidden obligations
A cold cell
And short haircuts
Save us from the death penalty
Amen
Amen
Amen

Fire of the Mind

Does death come alone or with eager reinforcements?
Does death come alone or with eager reinforcements?
Death is centrifugal
Solar and logical
Decadent and symmetrical
Angels are mathematical
Angels are bestial
Man is the animal
Man is the animal

The blacker the sun
The darker the dawn
Flashes from the axis
Flashes from the axis
On the hummingway to the stars

Holy holy, holy holy, holy oh holy
Holy holy, holy holy, holy
Holy holy, holy holy, holy

Man is the animal

The blacker the suns
The darker the dawn

Going Up

Are you ready to go now?
(seems to be repeated)

Ground floor: perfumery,
Stationery and leather goods,
Wigs and haberdashery,
Kitchenware and foods
Going up
Going up

First floor: telephones,
Gents' ready-made suits,
Shirts, socks, ties, hats,
Underwear and shoes
Going up
Going up

Second floor: carpets,
Travel goods and beddings,
Materials and soft furnishing,
Restaurant and teas
Whoa
Going up
(repeated)

It just is.
(repeated)

Heaven's Blade

There's blood in the sun
There's blood in the sun
But I'm not afraid
I cut myself with Heaven's blade

Inside the wound I found my wings
And walked away from this human skin

I asked the earth to open up the sky
To get inside and live with me for life

I stand before the sun
Rise up and see the shape of things to come
It's all the same
(repeated)

Just cut yourself
(repeated)
With Heaven's blade
Just cut yourself
With Heaven's blade
Just cut yourself
With Heaven's blade
(repeated)

I Don't Get It

Hello! (repeated at various pitches)
It's in My Blood

It's in my bloodstream
It's in my bloodstream
It's in my blood, bloodstream

Bloodstains

The Last Amethyst Deceiver

Pay your respects to the vultures
For they are your future
Our fathers and mothers have
Our fathers and mothers have
They have failed to release us
They have failed to release us
They have failed to release us
Into the welcoming arms (repeated)
Of the amethyst deceivers
So pay your respects
So pay your respects
Pay your respects to the vultures
And to the crows
And to the carrion crows
And to the ravens
Those graven ravens
And to the carrion crows
And to the rooks
And to the rooks
And to the vultures
And to the vultures
And to the vultures
Pay your respects to the vultures
For they are our future (repeated)
For they are your future
Our fathers and mothers have
Our fathers and mothers have
Our fathers and mothers have
They have failed to release us
Into the welcoming arms
Into the welcoming arms
Into the welcoming arms
Of the amethyst
Of the amethyst
The little mushrooms
The little mushrooms
Welcoming arms
Of the amethyst (repeated)
Of the amethyst deceivers

Tattooed Man

There's a man lying down in a grave somewhere
With the same tattoos as me
And I love him, I love him, I love him, I love him, I love him

There's a man lying down in a bed somewhere
With a different set of sex aspects
And I hate him, I hate him, I hate him, I hate him, my eyes

This is me here now
Pining like a dog, whining like a dog in a thick harbour fog
Waiting for a ship that will make him sick
And when the ship comes, big trouble (not we're in trouble as the inlay suggests)
His trouble will begin

And the church bells chime the colour of wine
And the angels devil fight to snatch back the lost time

And there's a man lying down with a blade somewhere
With the same taboos as me
And I love him, I love him, I love him, I love him, I love him

There's a man lying down in a bed somewhere
With a different set of sex aspects
And I hate him, I hate him, I hate him, I hate him, my eyes

This is the dark age of love
This is the dark age of love
This is the dark age of love
This is the dark ???

And I love him, I love him, I love him, I love him, I love him

There's a man laying down
There's a man laying down
There's a man laying down
There's a man laying down somewhere

Somewhere

Teenage Lightning 2005

Don't be alarmed
It will not harm you
It's only lightning
Teenage lightning

Don't be afraid
Don't be expectant
Don't be afraid
Don't be reluctant
Don't be afraid

It's only lightning
Teenage lightning
It will not harm you

Don't be afraid
It will not harm you
It's only lightning
Teenage lightning
It's real, it's unbelievably real

It will not harm you
???
It's only lightning

It's only lightning
Teenage lightning
Triple Sun

And I swallowed the one you bury
And then I swallowed the one you bury
Then I swallowed the one you bury (repeated)

It's perhaps unavoidable, but every single phrase here comes steeped in prophecy; every melody line leads the listener inwards towards reflection. The first line of opener "Fire of the Mind": "Does death come alone or with eager reinforcements?" Its chapel-organ-like tones bring an immediate air of finality, hanging heavy over this final Coil studio album. Ian Johnstone's gorgeously funereal white card packaging, striking photographs, and his stark cover artwork (which is either an angry ape or a figure post-castration, depending on which way you look at it) gives a quiet, contemplative, eerie, peace to the contents, which veer from maniacal lunacy to spiritual deliberation. It's unclear what the late Jhonn Balance's completed vision would have been for the posthumous The Ape of Naples, and this album is a gathering of unreleased work from his last days and earlier material culled from uncompleted sessions. It was an odd combination of Balance's deterioration, Promethean genius, and human warmth that made him one of the most unique frontmen ever; this LP stands as a testament to those qualities. There's something slightly peculiar about the album in that at times Balance doesn't seem fully visible even when he's in full voice. On several occasions, his vocals sound somewhat shrouded. Is there lassitude in Balance's voice, or is there a purposeful remoteness on the performances of "Triple Sun" and "Amber Rain"? Or is it just the hindsight of what happened investing his vocals with foresight? Some of the material here will be familiar to Coil fans from live releases and gigs, and "The Last Amethyst Deceiver" (as near an official Coil classic as its possible to get), "Triple Sun" (the version here is criminally short but elegantly detailed) and "Teenage Lightning 2005" are already well known in Coil circles. But their place on this album and excellent production cannot be undervalued, as each helps to show Balance at his visionary best. The many Coil affiliates (Ossian Brown, Tom Edwards, Cliff Stapleton, Mike York, Danny Hyde, and Thighpaulsandra) that have helped Sleazy to realize these performances into gorgeously disturbed beds of music should receive praise, too; The Ape of Naples sounds truly out of time and delicately beautiful in places. The poise of electronic sounds and beats with warm live instrumentation (such as marimbas) gives the music a human heart, making the atmosphere of loss all the more conspicuous. "Tattooed Man", either a song of love for his current partner or a piece of ugly self loathing, features a hurdy-gurdy, lending the track both a Gallic and sea-faring feel. How did these so-called Industrialists end up somewhere as charmingly sweet as here? In contrast, they punch out a version of "Heaven's Blade" that is as untethered, drugged, coherently dark, and deliciously vehement as anything they've done previously, even during their Ecstasy-overdosing era. A track from their aborted Backwards sessions at Trent Reznor's Nothing Studios, this is a jilting, buzzing, jittery furrow which wolves whisper, swirl, and snarl around in hopes of fresh blood. Balance is slyly conspiratorial and loosely clings to the thin line between angelic transformation and madness; coupled with a magnificently understated backing track, this is likely to be seen as one of their pinnacles. "I Don't Get It" is creepily damaged, sounding like the unwinding of some sick child's melted toy as organic twisted sounds bubble under the surface. Balance's torn up, sped up, and fucked up vocals are cast into the mix without a thought for their malign influence on the sweet string and horn arrangements. Like some sleep-deprived remake of Randall and Hopkirk: Deceased, this foggy detective-thriller theme shows glimpses into a mangled psyche through the spitting, screaming, snarling Balance. The song attempts to pulse and strain under its own tight structures, but somehow remains in one piece to its creaking, rubber-gagged end. His vocals also strain at the walls of sanity on "It's In My Blood," where his yodeling screams and elongated, tortured vowels manage to speak up for the whole asylum ward with the high pitched whine of the title. An oil drum beat, war horns, and Thighpaulsandra's descending string derangements lead to an off-mic quip from Balance ("Is that enough, Sleaze?"), as if his howls were as normal to him as fish and chips. Ending with one of the most unlikely songs for anyone to cover, never mind Coil, who'd of predicted the theme to UK cheesy camp sitcom Are you Being Served? being used for anything other than a UK Hip-Hop sample? "Going Up" takes the original's theme and loops it under a slow waltz, turning it into a very gentle, tongue-in-cheek, open-armed welcome to Death. Balance's words are dropped low into the mix and Francois Testory's choirboy vocals are a prayer to the bric-a-brac of everyday life and the escape skywards. This album catches Jhonn Balance's many guises in amber and traps them for a generation of explorers to swallow, follow, and then take down their own path. As one of their most unmagikal-themed releases, there might have been commercial avenues for this album that will never be followed up. The summing up of twenty-three years of Coil will be left for the future's sure-to-come "best of" collection; The Ape of Naples stands as one of their finest albums ever, making it all the more gutting that this is their last. - Scott McKeating, Stylus

Listening to The Ape of Naples is a bittersweet experience. As the last album recorded during John Balance's lifetime, it serves as a final statement and summation of the band's multi-faceted career. Naples is much more of a "classic"-sounding Coil album (in the vein of Love's Secret Domain and Musick to Play in the Dark, Vol. 1) than more recent outings (such as ANS, Constant Shallowness Leads to Evil, or Astral Disaster). Ape is made up of recording sessions that date back to the mid-'90s, recordings done for Trent Reznor's nothing label, and more recent works that were still getting worked out in a live environment ("Triple Sun," "Tattooed Man"). Balance and Peter Christopherson are joined by the likes of Danny Hyde, Thighpaulsandra, Ossian Brown, Cliff Stapleton, and Mike Yorke, depending on the track. Which would lead one to the assumption that the album would sound disjointed, with a rotating cast of characters involved. The magic of Coil is that the album flows as smoothly as it does, not as if it were pieced together over the years and with different collaborators. The focus of the album seems to be (perhaps consciously, perhaps not) on Balance's beautiful and expressive voice. All tracks feature his vocals, notably the industro-goth of "Heaven's Blade," the twisted circus atmospheres of "Tattooed Man," and quite possibly the saddest song Coil ever recorded, a cover of BBC favorite Are You Being Served's theme song, "Going Up." This last is a highlight in the Coil catalog, with Balance duetting with Francois Testroy, telling the listener that "it just is." The painful acceptance of this line encapsulates the experience of the album -- Balance is gone, we must move on and continue. The Ape of Naples is one of Coil's best albums and one of the best albums of 2005. - James Mason, All Music Guide

I can't think of any experience in the world more emotionally painful than a parent losing a child. No matter the circumstances (accident, disease, etc,... ), one experience is common to all survivors: the need to seek some kind of closure, which nothing can bring. A gaping emotional void remains. Fans and friends looking for closure with the final studio album from Coil are not going to find it here. Only recently have I realized how appropriate the name John Balance really was. Geff/John undeniably brought an equal (and extreme) amount of joy and pain all those he touched. He was extreme, and although his death was blamed on his alcoholism, if it wasn't that it would have been the drugs, and if it wasn't that it would have been something else: he was an extreme person who with manifested extremes of personality. The Ape of Naples is a very painful album: it was conceived in pain, it was recorded in pain, it was completed in pain. Many of its songs date back over a decade to when the working title was Backwards. Peter Christopherson—along with the supporting cast of Thighpaulsandra, Ossian Brown, Cliff Stapleton, Mike Yorke, and others—has pulled together songs from different sessions, recorded at different times and different parts of the world to piece this together. The packaging is lavish but delicate. A glued insert folds out into a poster, containing lyrics and images by Ian Johnstone, but the card stock in which it is conatined is not something to be left in places where it can be damaged easily. One of the intentions seems to have been not to make something like an Unnatural History (Coil's compilation series of previously issued singles and other non-LP tracks), so everything here is previously unreleased, more or less. The songs chosen, or the versions presented have never been issued. Fans will appreciate finally having the music recorded in that infamous New Orleans session and earmarked for that Trent Reznor-curated imprint of Interscope Records long ago. Six of the 11 songs come from there. "Fire of the Mind," which was also a working title of this album at one point, opens the record with the rich choral and organ based beauty reminiscent of the Musick to Play in the Dark series. It's accented with the hurdy gurdy playing of Cliff Stapleton, who was a relatively new addition to Coil. (The other new additions to the ensemble are the marimba and vibraphone playing of Tom Edwards and the pipe and duduk playing from Mike York, both of which feature prominently on other tracks.) The first line is striking for coming from a recently departed man's mouth: "Does Death come alone or with eager reinforcements?" Along with other lines like "I don't expect I'll understand how life just trickled through my hand" on the equally touching "Amber Rain" hint that Balance could have known the end was near for him, however, I think he has always toyed with death and the concept of the end. (See: Horse Rotorvator, whose working title was Funeral Music for Princess Diana, lines like "Most accidents occur at home" in "Sex with Sun Ra," and "the world is in pain, we all must be shown, we must realise that everyone changes and everything dies" on "Blood from the Air"). Balance's most political statement, "A Cold Cell" first appeared on a compilation from The Wire magazine. "I Don't Get It" was a Song of the Week given away on the Brainwashed Coil website, however it was originally named "Spastiche." Both of these songs have been reworked into completely new versions. While the sound on "I Don't Get It" has been expanded with vocals and more sound effects, "A Cold Cell" is more stripped and abbreviated. "It's In My Blood" was also the title of a song dating back to the infamous Backwards demos, but that song surfaced as "AYOR" on those compilations which first appeared in Russia before being issued through Threshold House. On this album it is an entirely new song, yet Balance's painful wailing remains. Similarly, "Heaven's Blade" here is a completely different song than the song of the same title which appeared on the unfinished demos. Some might not appreciate how much material has been recycled, despite the fact that everything contained are indeed radically new versions. Songs like "The Last Amethyst Deceiver" and "Teenage Lightning 2005" stick out in particular as they have been issued so much. "Tattooed Man," "Triple Sun," and "Going Up" are the newest songs, revealed only through live performances over the last few years. The versions here might have been assembled through both archives of live shows and in-studio recordings of the group. The first two being much shorter than the noisier, elongated versions the band did live, while the last is based on the theme for the BBC's Are You Being Served? and features the wonderful soprano falsetto of Francois Testory. The brevity of the majority of these songs actually do an effective job of conveying the notion of unfinished business, leaving everybody without that sense of closure they seek, but, as Balance says in the very last line, "it just is." - Jonathan Dean, Brainwashed