Jean-Michel Jarre – Oxygène [1976; Les Disques Motors, Polydor]

With numerous layers of synthesizers droning, sweeping, and warbling over each other, the six-part suite of
Oxygène flows along on gentle energies and light playfulness. Adapting largely the same instrumentation and synth voices to various moods, tempos, and densities of activity, the album proceeds along its course with smooth transitions. Hints of early techno crop up from time to time, usually when the bass-lines are allowed to take hold, while the slips into slow particle washes foreshadow the emergence of dark ambient. Though the conclusion is a bit lacking, with no firm completion of the themes, it’s still an interesting set of compositions, and its anticipation of further developments in electronic music adds some extra spice.

Razed High – Invisible [2001; Insidious Urban Records]

On their only album, the duo of Razed High mesh downtempo beats with swirling sample loops, making chill and jazzy arrangements that float along until fading out to a finish. The A-side takes its time with five tracks, while sixteen are crammed into the second half (turning more into sound assemblages than traditional songs), as track titles such as “Indigenous Invisibility”, “Corporate Blindness”, and “Forest Lost” provide an inflection of societal commentary to the almost entirely instrumental cuts. Squirts of turntablism and bolts of drum-pad embellishment tend to be the most active parts of the songs, but the easy-going rhythmic rides use quiet background texturing to generate levels of depth that can easily slip by the ear. A cool and confident batch of tracks, making it quite a shame that apart from a two-track 7″, this was the group’s only release.

Coil – The New Backwards [2008; Threshold House]

Containing reworkings of material appearing on the leaked demo of Coil’s unreleased Backwards album, The New Backwards, like the semi-posthumous The Ape of Naples, shows a rather sharp change in style from their previous studio album (discounting the machine process material of 2003/2004′s ANS releases), 2002′s The Remote Viewer, which focused on drones mixed with ethnicity-linked instrumentation. It also differs from the ‘main-line’ material the group released around 1993 or 1996 (the alleged dates for the recording of the original Backwards) and ends up feeling more like cast-offs from 1991′s Love’s Secret Domain or their vs. side-projects (e.g., Coil vs. ELpH) than any of their subsequent Coil-only works.

Audio manipulation plays a heavy role in the songs, with distortion, pitch-shifting, chopping, stitching, and randomization regularly applied to the vocals. Masses of altered samples and densely-programmed synths provide the accompanying rhythms and other audio activity, warbling, juddering, uncurling, and expanding in disorienting directions, only to thread out a clear melody from the disorder. While notably less satisfying than one of Coil’s full ‘concept’ albums, of which there were relatively few, it still presents the group’s technical and creative qualities in impressive form, with a few moments of striking emotion among the more process-focused work.

Various Artists – Warp 10+3 Remixes [1999; Matador, Play It Again Sam, SMEJ Associated Records, Source, Warp Records, Zomba]

Pulling well-known and obscure base songs from Warp Records’ (at this point) decade-long catalog, this compilation features remix contributors to match, with results including Stereolab remixing Boards of Canada, Plaid remixing Autechre, Oval remixing Squarepusher, and so on for the rest of two CDs. With twenty-six tracks all together, the moods and styles jump all over their respective spectrums; however, despite the available options, Warp plays it safe by leaning on the big names of their stable for multiple base tracks (LFO gets top honors, with three songs to themselves and an opening mix track shared with Aphex Twin).

Chilled grooves are the main flavor, but some hyperactivity is common too, as breaks get jumbled and chopped, synth layers get tangled, and skittery percussion is flipped on and off for embellishment. Through it all, the mixing, production, and engineering maintain an impressively high polish, one which helps join the older material with the new in near-seamless fashion. As such, while the collection offers an interesting cross-section of how the Warp label developed over its first decade of existence, it takes some careful examination to really pull out that information from the mass of material. More obvious (and possibly more informative about Warp’s impact) are the remixers that appear, many of whom come from outside Warp’s usual line-up and signings. Though presented as one big block, it all flows together well, and the selections certainly paint Warp in a good light.

Here’s the alternate cover art.

Ulver – Teachings in Silence [2002; Black Apple Records]

Compiling Ulver’s Silence Teaches You How to Sing and Silencing the Singing EPs (both originally released in 2001), this CD opens with the title (and only) track of the first EP. Stitching together aural fragments including static, rotary phone dialing, record sticking, and cell phone interference into more solid elements (e.g.,
synthesizer arpeggiation, wordless vocalizations, and piano), “Silence Teaches You How to Sing” rolls on across 24 minutes of slow-change, low-energy atmosphere.

The content of the second EP begins with “Darling Didn’t We Kill You?”, shuffling muffled percussion through muted guitar loops, drones, distorted laughter, and piano accompaniment, leading through a strong beat-loop bridge, and finishing with a low-end rumble. “Speak Dead Speaker” follows this with more quiet clattering, bumping, and fuzzy feedback, while thin synthesizer tones grow in prominence before transferring to strings. Lastly, “Not Saved” takes a cathedral atmosphere of bells and organ and applies light disruption effects to the sounds, making for a relatively calm finish. Oddly disquieting for such downtempo material, but for the right wintry mood, highly satisfying.

Here’s the album art used for the vinyl reissue.

The original cover art for Silence Teaches You How to Sing.

And the original cover art for Silencing the Singing.

Coil – Autumn Equinox: Amethyst Deceivers [1998; Eskaton]

The third in a quarterly series, Autumn Equinox was released in 7″ and CD versions, with the CD edition featuring three extra tracks and alternate mixes of the two included on the 7″. It begins with the quick “Regel”, featuring vocal howls and high-speed electronic burblings, before shifting to the more sedate moodiness of “Rosa Decidua”, with smooth-edged tones from synths and guest singers merging into goosebump-inducing textures while co-founder Jhonn Balance delivers metaphor-laden verses.

“Switches” follows, cutting in and out of several channels of ongoing noise for a high-contrast conceptual piece that sadly falls a bit flat in content, past the rushing tone escalations. “The Auto-Asphyxiating Hierophant” serves as something of a throwback to the group’s Scatology styles, with dirge-like horn compression and strings proceeding over slow beats and electronically-filtered vocals. And lastly, “Amethyst Deceivers” operates from a base of strings and synth-tones, with a gentility playing against the hissing undertones. Though not entirely satisfying, the less effective pieces are in the minority, and the whole of it is short enough to be done before any real disappointment can build.

Coil – Backwards [2015; Cold Spring]

A reconstruction/continuation/adaptation of a 1993 demo tape by the same name, this ‘official’ rendition (released after the deaths of all of the band’s founding members) shares just a handful of tracks with the original leaked version, as some of the songs ended up portioned off into The Ape of Naples. The result ends up feeling more than a little patchwork, but as a scattered collection of Coil tracks, it’s not outright bad.

The usual attentive meshing of assorted synths and effects with analog instruments is present throughout much of the album, and the few tracks retained from the ‘93 tape (usually with new titles) have been audibly polished up, though some of the alterations are likely to rub long-time devotees the wrong way. Emulated percussion is allowed to run rampant in parts, samples of exotic instruments are looped and chopped, with the vocals receiving the same treatment in spots, and a vaguely dance-inclined atmosphere makes for an odd but interesting fit with the mostly harsh timbres.

Unfortunately, the momentum of the album is uneven and jerky, with abrupt changes in tone, mood, and energy making it difficult to establish a listening groove. Though it is nice to have the material released in a more widely-available form, the presentation still leaves something to be desired.

Here’s the alternate cover art.

Coil – The Unreleased Themes for Hellraiser [1987; Solar Lodge Records]

This collection leads with its name-sake, three pieces intended for use in the 1987 Hellraiser film before Christopher Young took over its scoring duties. Blending a range of piano-like synth voices with heavy electronic percussion, the “Hellraiser” cue opens with an establishment of the brooding undertones which persist in “The Box Theme”, as that piece adds in more lingering low tones and the clinking of a malfunctioning music box. “Main Title” revisits the instrumentation from “Hellraiser”, pushing it to a more driven pace and harder energy, with faint lulls drawing in touches from “The Box Theme” as well.

The remainder of the record is a tour through music Coil produced for use in commercials for assorted companies and products, including “Liqueur”, “Video Recorder”, “Accident Insurance”, and so on. As might be imagined, these pieces, aside from having very short durations, are also much more friendly in tone, though they retain the synths and experimental flavoring. Presumably, they were also created around the same time as the Hellraiser themes, as some of the instrumentation sounds near-identical at times (the piano of “Perfume” being one of the more easily identified instances). Something of a dig, as it’s targeted towards Coil completionists, but it does offer up a nice deep look into their material and quick-form composing techniques of the time.

Crunch – 1 [2001; Musik Aus Strom]

The first album from the duo of Mike Wallis and Dave Tipper under the name Crunch offers up fifteen tracks of clippy, buzzy electronic experimentation, applying IDM techniques to more sedate soundscapes. Chopped and drilled percussion, sharp pitch changes, squished breakbeats, and a host of audio filters are applied and combined over the course of the album, with the infrequent bursts of higher energy sliding right into place next to the more chill regularity.

Despite the often fragmentary style of the songs, the grab-bag of effects, and the absence of vocals, the album keeps its flow going without much stumbling, and the processed nature of the music combines well with the sly humor that flavors most of the pieces. It does end up drifting into redundancy a few times, but the reconfigured tweaks help brush that off as a minor flaw. All together, some nicely creative works built on strong technical knowledge.

Various Artists – X-Rated: The Dark Files [2006; Steamin’ Soundworks]

Pulling together alternate takes, exclusive songs, tracks from (at the time) upcoming albums, and pieces from obscure or rare releases, this compilation roams through a set of experimental electronic music with (as the name implies) an emphasis on dark and/or occult inclinations in their composition and samplings.
There’s also a bit of Coil-related thread running through the
collection, as, in addition to the British group contributing a track
(and the compilation being dedicated in memoriam to one of its
co-founders), a number of the other groups had remixed or been remixed
by Coil, or had other associations with them.

Vocal wailings meshed with staticky sonic flickerings, slow piano over synth dronings, cut-up speech, quiet moans and sub-bass surges, and similar combinations of analog and digital populate the compilation, which goes for slow but large-scale atmospheres often enough to build up a sense of sinister grandiosity. At ~75 minutes all together, it does drag on a bit, but that stretch of time allows the larger songs to sink extensively into their textures without feeling overly compressed or rushed. While it does take a particular sort of mood for the compilation to really click with a listener, it hits its intended flavor mark quite well.