John Balance
Peter Christopherson
Thighpaulsandra
Simon Norris
Tom Edwards

All Tomorrow's Parties

Camber Sands, UK

Camber Sands

image 1 by Steven Sampaio
image 2 by Steven Sampaio
image 3 by Steven Sampaio
image 4 by Steven Sampaio
image 5 by Steven Sampaio
image 6 by Steven Sampaio

Jhon Balance came out wearing an 19th Century white flower-pattern dress, with his hair combed sharply to the side, and a big DH Lawrence beard which made him look like a Victorian madman in the throes of space dementia. As soon as I saw him I started laughing uncontrollable and the acid even made me shout "Oh, Mary...". Jhon looked shocked that I though his outfit amusing. Coil did a "quiet" set of material, basically three long improvisations. The first was a narrative and an invocation for the return of Jhon Balance's green marbleized notebook of lyrics and notes, which was stolen somewhere near the Marlyebone tube station while he was under the influence of Rohypnal. At one point during the song, he made eye contact with me and I immediately vomited three times into the crowd. Then the acid finally kicked in. The second song was about snow falling in military winters, a wandering, buzzing, surround-sound melody with green light and green milky visuals on screen. The third song was a long version of "The Dreamer in Still Asleep" with Jhon recounting his recent breakdown "a somnambulist in an ambulance/I killed my doctor/I said 'physician, heal thyself'"...creepy, disturbing, insane but altogether human, refined, amazing. - Jonathan Dean

ANS (single CD)