Coil - Horse Rotorvator (2001 Remaster) + The Anal Staircase EP (Full Albums)
Full albums, both originally released in 1986. The first is sourced from FLAC but converted to WAV to publish in this video. The EP is sourced from MP3; it's the highest quality I have.
Horse Rotorvator (2001 Remaster):
1. The Anal Staircase 0:00
2. Slur 4:01
3. Babylero 7:32
4. Ostia (The Death of Pasolini) 8:23
5. Herald 14:47
6. Penetralia 15:50
7. Ravenous 22:01
8. Circles of Mania 25:27
9. Blood From the Air 30:29
10. Who By Fire (Leonard Cohen Cover) 36:01
11. The Golden Section 38:39
12. The First Five Minutes After Death 44:30
The Anal Staircase EP:
1. The Anal Staircase (A Dionysian Remix) 49:15
2. Blood from the Air 54:54
3. Ravenous 1:00:12
John Balance
Peter Christopherson
Stephen Wyndham Thrower
Clint Ruin - brass arrangements on "Circles of Mania"
Billy McGee - string arrangement on "Ostia"
Paul Vaughn - narration on "The Golden Section"
Marc Almond - backing vocals on "Slur" and "Who By Fire"
Rico Conning - "The Anal Staircase" remixer
This is Coil's best album of all time, tied only to The Ape of Naples. From beginning to end, the album expresses delicious imagery and themes of sex, militarism, death, and homo-eroticism. I'm not even gay and this stuff kicks ass. It's very dark, relentless, visceral, and came at a time when the band was still radically industrial and Stephen Thrower was a prominent member.
The album was named "Horse Rotorvator", inspired by a dream John had involving the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse killing their horses, removing their jaw bones, and creating a giant machine from them that tunnels through the earth. Scary stuff. John kept a dream diary, collecting much of the imagery and using it in his music.
Tracks 1, 2, 4, and 12 are my favorites off the album.
"The Anal Staircase" is one of the most brilliant album openers I have come across, perhaps beat only by Joy Division and The Velvet Underground album openers. The main beat sounds like an evolved Scatology-era song. Then the lyrics...my God, John wrote some of his best lyrics with this album. Who could deny? Just listen and shiver.
"Slur" has excellent percussion and a very strange melody on top of it. The lyrics are apparently about being sodomized in the desert. Marc Almond provides backing vocals.
I have no idea who sings "Babylero". It sounds like a kid. Insect sounds, possibly recorded in the ruins of some Aztec ritual area, provide percussion. This leads into the greatest song Coil ever wrote.
"Ostia (The Death of Pasolini)" is PERFECT. FUCKING AMAZING. It's their best song, period. JUST LISTEN. The lyrics are about the death of Italian film director and intellectual Pier Paolo Pasolini, who was murdered in Ostia in 1975 by being run over with his own car. I won't go into the full story, as it's rather long and disturbing. This is one of the few songs by Coil to get a music video.
"Herald" segue-ways out of the darkness and into some flimsy brass orchestra. It keeps with the military theme,
"Penetralia" is a pretty cool song. Very percussive.
"Ravenous" kinda reminds me of Halloween. Just has a lot of twisted synth stuff on it; not the best.
"Circles of Mania" begins with an announcement that a character named Joey is entering the stage. John creates a very powerful image of a demented jazz club singer drunkenly singing about gay sex and euphemisms. You could tell he was having a lot of fun.
I don't like "Blood from the Air" too much. Not much to say.
"Who by Fire" is an excellent song. I have yet to hear the original Leonard Cohen version, but Coil do a great job with it.
"The Golden Section" resumes more of the military theme, with its drums and brass section. The narration sounds as if it's lifted from a documentary, but I have no idea if this is so. It describes a devil and a nun.
"The First Five Minutes After Death" is arguably the most military. It sounds brilliant. Not really the type of music I'd associate with death, having listened to Joy Division and Nirvana for so long, but I like. It gets a bit too chaotic towards the end, but that's fine. Excellent song.
Most of this album has alternate versions, available on compilations like "Gold is the Metal With the Broadest Shoulders".
Most of the album was eventually played live, starting 15 years later. But not all of it. Sucks.
Additional info can be found here: http://www.brainwashed.com/common/htdocs/discog/rota1.php?site=coil08
The Anal Staircase EP came out just before Horse. It features a remix of "The Anal Staircase" and two other songs off of the album. I'm not aware of any mix differences or anything applied to the two songs, but I figured I could combine the LP and the EP together in one.
Enjoy!!! :D
