Starting as a rough demo tape recorded solely by Coil member Drew McDowall, Time Machines started to take full form when McDowall enthusiastically delivered these demo recordings to John Balance and Peter "Sleazy" Christopherson as sketches for a new Coil project with the primary goal of shifting Coil’s sound further into a more conceptually abstract direction. Largely recorded in 1997 using single takes, with minimal post production, these four drones contain every intended fluctuation and tone, along with every glitch of the original – "Artifacts generated by your listening environment are an intrinsic part of the experience."

"4 Tones to facilitate travel through time." So begins the listeners’ journey into what has become one of the most treasured and revered pieces of COIL history ever released. Each of the four pieces on Time Machines is named after the chemical compound of the hallucinogenic drug that they were composed for, and the album was meticulously crafted to enable what John Balance referred to as "temporal slips" in time and space, allowing both the artist and audience to figuratively "dissolve time".

Inspired by long form ceremonial music of Tibet and other religions, where the intent is to lose oneself in the music – to meditate or achieve a trance state – Time Machines became Drew McDowall, John Balance, and Peter Christopherson's "electronic punk-primitive" answer to this tribal concept.

Remastered by Josh Bonati and supervised by Drew McDowall, Time Machines is officially reissued as a double vinyl LP featuring deluxe matte gatefold with gloss overlay and printed eurosleeves inserts. The compact disc edition included reproductions of the six original vinyl stickers and comes housed in a gatefold chipboard digipack featuring spot gloss overlay.