HORSE ROTORVATOR

HORSE ROTORVATOR is the second official release by the avant-garde electronic band COIL, who were clearly on another planet in 1986 when they were making this kind of stuff. If you dropped down in that time period you wouldn't hear anything even remotely similar to this being played in public at least. This was and still is highly experimental music that evokes nightmarish darkened depths where only the insane can thrive. I guess I am one of those insane individuals because I have always loved the bizarre soundscapes that COIL painted. This second release by the band is actually a transition album incorporating the sinister vocal dark wave type tracks from the debut album (almost reminding me of a more hellish version of Soft Cell at times) with the depressive instrumental ambient music that would become their staple for pretty much the rest of their career. The music is surprisingly varied and they clearly had a way of identifying more ways of constructing creepy music than any other act in history.

As I listen to this I am simply in awe at how simple the music seems when it begins and then how amazingly complex it can get as one sound creeps in after another and before you know it is a tapestry of sound for the manic, depraved and absolute crazed. I guess the whole point is to induce a psychotic frenzy, a neo-freakout or whatever you want to call it. The song titles alone suggest a strong desire to eschew even a meager bit of conformity. Tracks like "The Anal Staircase," "Penetralia," "Circles Of Mania" and "The First Five Minutes After Death" only confirm that this gifted group that consists of John Balance and Peter Christopherson as the creative core are one of the most twisted and subversive musical acts that has ever put out recordings. Be warned for if you listen to this you may feel a sense of dread, despair and impending doom unlike any other that even other depressive forms of music can achieve. Oh yes. I love it so very much.