Coil

Coil’s year 2000 electric storm is their next legendary chapter for legit reissue, exemplifying the fathomless variegation of their vision with overproof levels of digital noise masking deeply trippy song structures.  After tenderising flesh with the reissue of the ‘Musick To Play In The Dark’ volumes, Dais unleash Coil’s tempestuous sore thumb ‘Constant Shallowness Leads To Evil’ for a sharp right swerve into the depths of their profound catalogue. Issued the same year as ‘MTPITD’, as well as ‘Queens of The Circulating Library’ and ‘Time Machines’, the six parts of ‘Constant Shallowness…’ frame John Balance, Peter Christopherson and Thighpaulsandra at their most possessed and uncanny, swan-diving down the wormhole from glitch-worshipping distortion via gremlinoid marimba, to the head-mangling half-hour hymn ‘Tunnel Of Goats’, wreathing John’s fallen choirboy plangency with transformative digital distortion.

From any angle it’s a true landmark and, for relative newcomers to their sound, one liable to deeply expand and fuck with any myopic perceptions of their music.  Perhaps the most uncompromising and distinctive Coil album, due to its harnessing of digital brutality and abject lack of conventionality, ‘Constant Shallowness Leads To Evil’ holds a special place in the hearts of their most ardent psychonaut fans for its embrace of harsh psychedelia. Arising with the hackled tone of ‘Higher Beings Command’, and oscillating munted digital folksong ‘I Am The Green Child’ with three oblique, manacled Tesla coil blowouts, the release is best defined by the final part, where it all comes together in unprecedented form.

First listed as an 18-part song on original copies, ‘Tunnel of Goats’ is actually a single, 28 minute work of ear-floss genius, shredding high-register frequencies and roiling distortion before John floats above it all like a doe-eyed choirboy, then recedes into the digital barbs for a ritual flagellation.