Unnatural History (Compilation Tracks Compiled) cover

Unnatural History (Compilation Tracks Compiled)

Released

In 1990, on the cusp of returning to full-length work with the following year’s Love’s Secret Domain, Coil issued the first in what would be an irregular series of collections documenting a variety of one-off contributions and appearances. Contrary to the album’s subtitle, Unnatural History wasn’t entirely drawing on such releases – it ended with a mono mix of their debut EP, “How To Destroy Angels,” while the track “Never,” though it did also appear on a compilation, was part of their soundtrack to The Angelic Conversation. But everything else fits the brief, starting with four songs done in an early collaboration with Boyd Rice that, by default, hasn’t exactly aged well – “His Body Was A Playground For The Nazi Elite,” indeed. Thankfully the rest delves more into Coil’s 1980s-era sonic obsessions in their own right: sometimes intense, sometimes playful, pushing technology’s bleeding edge with collages of sound and sometimes unnerving silences. Standouts: “S Is For Sleep”’s calmly mesmerizing flow, the clattering crunch of “Homage To Sewage” and John Balance’s sweetly serene home demo “Comfortable.”

Ned Raggett

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