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So the last notes and marimba tones are fading to the most peculiar (partial) cover Coil have ever done*, concluding The Ape Of Naples with a solemn cello drone. But the humour which was always there is still present, implicitly and explicitly, amid each and every sorrowful sigh and sussurus, every worshipful glitch and the secreted domains of love.
You know what? My CD player defaults to repeat play - something which is often mildy irksome, but not tonight - so there is no ending, and Balance comes back again, muttering and wailing, yes and screaming too, of the animal Man, the angels and the demon drink, the bloodstream and the heavenly scars; and always death death death.
There are glimpses everywhere of the Coil which was and is now done, marked out in 23 years from 1982-2005 by the sleeve notes and in the reprise and returns to the Teenage Lightning, in the shuddering walking bass of the Last Amethyst Deceiver, shivering at the memory of A Cold Cell. The hints and references to places Coil have been before are refracted by Sleazy into a memento, a memorial and a celebration. There is much hidden joy which twinkles softly everywhere in Jhonn's timestretched voice, in that treated electronic Coil sound or the drone of a hurdy-gurdy and in each sequenced groan and wobbly offset bass tone or muted cornet spark: the sound of the possible spaces between hallucination and realisation, where the words have as many multiple meanings as the music(k).
Already as the CD spins past again on a second journey, The Ape Of Naples feels familiar, speaks in patterns which have their limits defined but not set; the promise of exploration is sparked by the forgotten accordion. It is a certainty that each listen will reveal more than the first, second or third. This may be the final Coil album proper, but some of their best were collections of the out-takes and fragments in any case. There is something of that feeling about the CD, but perhaps only through knowing that it was completed posthumously. The surprises emerge somewhere or other on each track, perhaps in waltz time or Thighpaulsandra's discombobulating orchestrations, maybe in sofware renditions and extrapolations, in the placement of a vocal effect or the braying of horns and the keening of a chorale to an unexpected rhythm - but this is Coil after all, and who could ask for more?
*No spoilers here - it is a repositioning whose dissonance is best appreciated by discovery and enjoyable recognition. |
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