I suppose it was only a matter of time before Coil's intoxicatingaesthetic concoction of homoeroticism, ritual occultism, anddrug-fueled decadence spawned its own specialized microculture.CCCPierce and Massimo of Black Sun Productions are probably not thefirst, but are certainly the most determined at expressing andembodying their zealous devotion to all things unquiet, sidereal andlunar. A pair of pierced, tattooed, European ex-prostitutes joinedtogether by civil union, Massimo and Pierce have explored and expoundedupon the latent ideas in Coil's music by mounting a series of sexualperformances, public and private, called Plastic Spider Thing,involving bondage, blood-drinking, ritualized sex acts and networks ofstretched plastic webbing. Their website(www.black-sun-productions.com) has grown over the years to includephotographic documents of their various aesthetic transgressions, fromhardcore fisting videos to journals with each page splashed with semen.Their first musical endeavor was 2002's album-length collection of Coilremixes by BSP associate DraZen, commissioned as a soundtrack forperformances of Plastic Spider Thing. It was an unimpressively murkymix of backwards-tracked selections from Threshold House's oevre withloads of extraneous effects, dulling the edge off everything that makesCoil spectacular. For this, their second foray into the musical arena,Pierce takes the reigns to create an album of new material, a warpedelectronic song cycle owing a substantial debt to the Moon Musick boys.Again conceived as a soundtrack to Plastic Spider Thing (Part XXII), Astral Walkis a big leap forward for BSP, if not an entirely successful album initself. I'm guessing that the majority of this album was made with asimilar array of analogue synthesizers and sequencers as those used inCoil's recordings, and it shows. "Entrata Lentissima" (transl: "SlowestEntrance") starts things off with a typically squishy, misshapen alienrhythm, soon joined by a cresting wave of those Coil-trademarkedshuddering, vibratory electronics. It's a textural, psychedelic sound,and for extreme Coil fetishists like me, it's immediately attractive.But after listening to "Lento" and "Moderato," which all but repeat theexact same audio strategies, adding layers of dark, droning stringsfamiliar from Musick to Play in the Dark, a cold feeling begins to set in. Unbelievably, all nine tracks on Astral Walkuse this same derivative bag of tricks, in various combinations, atvarious tempos. I had to keep checking my player to make sure I wasn'tstuck in repeat mode. The album's repetitiveness makes it a veryunattractive proposition for repeat listens. The dark, industrializedcover of Soft Cell's "Meet Murder My Angel" is a lone spot of respitefrom the rest of the album's uniformity, Massimo contributing spookywhispered vocals over intensely sexualized rhythms. The photos ofPierce and Massimo adorning the sleeve aim for the romantic, homoeroticcelluloid fantasies of Derek Jarman, to whom the album is dedicated.Though Astral Walk is clearly a major improvement over theirlast album, and there is much that hardcore Coil enthusiasts may likeabout the music, I hope that BSP will eventually find their own uniquemusical identity outside the rather large shadow cast by their heroes. Read More
