The first volume of Coil‘s unreleased Astral Disaster sessions was a revelation, chocked with new perspectives, and even introduced us to some fascinating freshness straight from the cutting room floor.
An all too brief sketch of “I Don’t Want To Be The One” greets us firstly, and stripped of the sumptuous orchestration and the manic outpourings of the final incarnation, it gleams in brittle resignation. A metabolic melt furnished in delicate sonic cuts and Star Trek doors that has Jhonn Balance feeling round the flow, ad-libbing the tension. A reserved ruffle, the ghostly graveyard whistle of “The Mothership (First Version – Dungeon Mix)” throws open in shivering séance and is one of this release’s high points, brimming over with a thorny magic that drags on the aperture, pulls the darkness round you like an oily rag.
I love how Astral Disaster still manages to gnaw at you after all this time, and even if the cat was let out of the bag with volume one, the alternative mix of “The Sea Priestess” that hits next introduces a rougher serenity to the equation and presents an unbalanced, raspy off-the-cuff version, full of weird saturations and glassy rubs that chaff like a Brighton beach. A diet of erosive vistas that maybe were mimicking the sorry state of Aleister Crowley’s infamous abbey frescoes that originally inspired this track’s lyrical flow, Balance’s voice listlessly levitating the gaseous rubs, nakedly reverbing the flickering flame of that sitar that strangely disconnects / re-connects.Yeah, it doesn’t quite compare to the eerie completeness of its volume one cousin, but it’s such a pity the spooky vocal / over-amped treatment at the end never made the proper release as they genuinely seem to be creatures of elsewhere, worthy of inclusion. Strange fruit that overspills into the looped palette cleanser of the “2nd Son Syndrome” that succinctly ends this side, its find a cure mirages possibly pointing to the future we now find ourselves in – who knows?
Not a bad collection so far, but it’s the second side that really throws the ace in the hole with a slowly roasted glimpse into a rich alternative that raids the esoteric lunchbox in clanking metal and scrapping concrete. I always thought it was such a shame the physicality of the ancient prison where Coil recorded this album didn’t shine as brightly on the official release as it could have, but now I’m glad to say this early mix of “The Mothership And The Fatherland” (taking up the whole of the B-side) re-addresses that oversight completely.The tubular roll of discarded metal and ratting shackles clang like pointed bones in this wonky ambience, sudden flashes that give your imagination plenty of phantoms to grapple with. Metallic flavours that would evaporate into “Mu-Ur”’s tightening shards of abstraction, but here happy to suckle on that subterranean gloom unadulterated. Puncturing echoes that ride the entrenched gasps and discolourations, persistently pulling you ever nearer, detaching you from reality in variegated spirals ripe with instability and desecrating discord, a buzz that makes everything feel more animated, haunted.
This is a brilliant taste of what might have been, and something that was never intended to be heard beyond the people that made it. Coil’s heritage has suffered greatly since their demise, but it’s things like this track that make you miss their golden touch all that more.-Michael Rodham-Heaps-
