Woefully out of Print Friday

Each Friday I'm going to dig through my cd collection and talk about a cd that really should be available for purchase, but alas and alack is gone daddy gone.

This week is going to be a cd that was my introduction to dark electronic music outside of movie scores (though it was a rejected score it's self) I"m referring to Coil's Unreleased Themes for Hellrasier



It was 1987 that Clive Barker released Hellraiser on a very unsuspecting audience. The blood, sadomasochism, sexual imagery- and that was just in the first 5 minutes- left quite an impression on this particular kid (enough that I can VIVIDLY remember my very first issue of Fangoria magazine with a Hellraiser cover story) enough so that I sought it out on VHS and got to see it that same summer. I loved the movie. It was in a word AWESOME.

Rumors started to float around about an alternative soundtrack for the film. This peaked my interest because I knew how much of an important role music played in the film, and I could not imagine what this other score could have possibly sounded like. I just knew if was from some band called Coil.

Little did I know that Coil had been making some of the most influential experimental and f'n DARK electronic music since the early 80's. (Give me a break. I grew up in rural Ohio) I spent a good amount of time trying to track the cd down. It was through an ad in Thrasher that I found the record- well the cd. How could I possibly turn down an album that was given this endorsement "The only group I've heard on disc, whose records I've taken off because they made my bowels churn." - Clive Barker, Director of Hellraiser.

I was not at all disappointed. That cd opened up a whole world of music to me, and provided some of my favorite remixes of all time (Gave Up on nine in nail's Fixed EP comes to mind) However that being said nothing will ever compare to the first time I heard the Hellraiser EP and how it pretty much changed EVERYTHING for me.

The songs are available on the Unnatural History II comp, but that 6 track EP is one of my favorite 17 minutes of music, and I hope that a few of you can track it down and listen to in the way it was intended. Lights off, candles lit, and playing with a curious puzzle box.

download The Hellbound Heart
download Box Theme

Coil page at brainwashed
Threshold House for all of your Coil needs