Coil’s lost ‘Hellraiser’ sessions land in June as an expanded LP and digiCD edition
Coil’s experimental soundtrack work for Clive Barker’s 1987 film “Hellraiser” will return on May 29, 2026 as “The Unreleased Themes for Hellraiser” in its “Expanded Ritual” edition so Audioglobe reports. Out via Musique Pour La Danse the release comes as a limited clear-vinyl LP and digiCD.
Barker originally wanted Coil to work on the film because he was a fan of the group. Their music was ultimately rejected in favor of Christopher Young’s more conventional orchestral score. Barker once said Coil were the only band he had ever heard whose records he had to remove because “they made his bowels churn.” Ideal for a horror OST apparently.
The new edition expands the long-circulating Coil material from those abandoned sessions. Longtime collaborator Danny Hyde found the original studio tapes and rebuilt the newly recovered material into a standalone suite. Hyde also supplied the new text, while Trevor Brown’s artwork is used for the release.
The LP comes as a first clear-vinyl edition of 300 copies next to a digipak CD.
About Hellraiser
“Hellraiser” is a 1987 British supernatural horror film written and directed by Clive Barker. For Baker it was his feature directorial debut. It was adapted from Barker’s 1986 novella “The Hellbound Heart” and stars Andrew Robinson, Clare Higgins, Ashley Laurence, and Doug Bradley.
Barker had become frustrated with earlier screen adaptations of his writing and chose to direct “Hellraiser” himself on a modest budget of just under $1 million.
The film follows a puzzle box that opens a gateway to the Cenobites, extra-dimensional beings associated with both pain and pleasure. The story centers on Frank Cotton, who uses the box and is torn apart after summoning the Cenobites. He later returns in partially resurrected form, while Julia helps him by luring victims so he can rebuild his body. Kirsty Cotton then becomes the key figure trying to survive the family nightmare and confront the beings unleashed by the box.
The film turned Pinhead, played by Doug Bradley, into one of horror cinema’s most known figures.
“Hellraiser” first screened publicly in London on September 10, 1987 and opened in the United States and Canada on September 18, 1987. Its original domestic gross was about $14.56 million, a strong return for a low-budget horror film.
It also launched a long-running franchise, followed by sequels including “Hellbound: Hellraiser II” in 1988 and “Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth” in 1992.
About Coil
Coil were formed in London in 1982 by John Balance and Peter Christopherson (Throbbing Gristle) after their work in Psychic TV. Their first official release was the 1984 EP “How to Destroy Angels”. They then moved into a run of major early works that included “Scatology” in 1985 and “Horse Rotorvator” in 1986, while also beginning soundtrack work that included the rejected “Hellraiser” material.
“The Unreleased Themes for Hellraiser” first appeared in 1987 on Solar Lodge as a 10-inch release, with a 1990 CD edition expanding the soundtrack material and dropping the “Music for Commercials” selections from the original vinyl release. The line-up for the recordings included John Balance and Peter Christopherson, plus Stephen Thrower, with Andrew Poppy and Billy McGee also appearing on pieces. Trevor Brown created the sleeve artwork for that first edition as well.
Across the 1990s and early 2000s, Coil’s catalogue widened into releases such as “Love’s Secret Domain”, “Time Machines”, “Musick to Play in the Dark”, and later “The Ape of Naples”. After Balance died in November 2004, Christopherson stated that Coil had ceased as an active creative entity. “The Ape of Naples” arrived in 2005, and later archival and posthumous releases, including “The New Backwards”, continued to keep the catalogue alive.
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