Coil

At a peak of their powers in 1998, Coil’s legendary star-gazers Jhonn Balance & Peter Christopherson convened with Drew McDowell and William Breeze on the last night in their Chiswick, London home to record material that would be issued as four EPs on their Eskaton label later that year. Paying tribute to dates of the calendar observed since pagan times, the recordings were an expression of the band’s occultist beliefs, blending poverty with spirited improvisaton and guest appearances by likes of Rose McDowell, overseen by noted occultist William Breeze, who would also perform on recordings by Psychic TV, C93, and X-TG. For this first deluxe vinyl pressing, Dais also incorporate the rare, related ‘Copal’ release, featuring Thighpaulsandra chiming into the esoteric ether, and making this edition the comprehensive set of Coil’s moon songs.

‘Moon's Milk (In Four Phases)’ is a breakwater in Coil’s catalogue prior their move to a final home in Weston-Super-Mare. It marks their last night in London with particularly melancholic gloom that mirrored a certain, dark change in the UK air that came after the preceding halcyon decade. In ‘First Phase: Spring Equinox’ they condense energies from pitch slapped organ and vocal drones in a possessed séance that resolves with ELpH-like electronic buzz (perhaps Breeze’s processed viola?), before prostrating to the sun with the ‘Second Phase: Summer Solstice’ and its stealthy progression from soured chamber shady ‘Bee Stings’ to the ether hallucination ‘Glowworms / Waveforms’, the starkly beautiful hymnal ’Summer Substructures’, and elliptical psych freak out ‘A Warning From the Sun (For Fritz).’