Yesterday was an unusual day as we experienced a sudden surge in donations from Bandcamp, more than the typical amount. Upon reviewing our page’s statistics to determine the source, it became apparent that something was happening on Twitter. A swift investigation revealed that Robert Smith from The Cure had tweeted a link to our 2022 charity compilation, “Electronic Resistance – A Darkwave / Post-Punk Compilation From The Ukrainian Underground“.

“Electronic Resistance” (and also the follow-up compilation “Electronic Resistance – Reconstruction”) is a 55-track strong compilation which features darkwave / post​-​punk acts from the Ukrainian underground scene only. Compiled in – extremely – difficult conditions it offers you an insight into the Ukrainian dark underground and also reflects what all of them are going through. It suffices to see some of the titles to understand what we mean.

The compilation features artists from allover Ukraine, from Odesa, Kyiv, Kharkiv, Dnipro, Mariupol, etc.. Many of them are right now in the frontline, or help in all kind of services from the fire departement to field hospitals. Others are distributing food, others have been forced out of their destroyed homes.

Stan Przhegodsky (aka Owen Wowson on Twitter), whose band Black Light District is featured on the compilation replied the following to Robert Smith’s initial tweet: “I was 14 years old when I started listening to The Cure. Decades later, you post a compilation that I appeared on (track 17). As a Ukrainian, this is multiple levels of amazing. Thank you very much. Respect & admiration.”

I was 14 years old when I started listening to The Cure.
Decades later, you post a compilation that I appeared on (track 17).
As a Ukrainian, this is multiple levels of amazing.
Thank you very much.
Respect & admiration.

— 🇺🇦 Owen Wowson 🎷 (@technicolorfilm) April 23, 2023

Watching Ukrainian family have their lives destroyed before coming to the U.S. last year, fearful and with little, all things related have my instant support. Heartbreaking artists also lost work and gear. First, partial listen, particularly enjoying tracks 2, 17, 48 so far.

— Ilse (@Ilse_not_that_1) April 23, 2023

Robert Smith is the last in many artists who have been supporting our charity work, earlier on also the cult act Throbbing Gristle pushed decided to give us an online push a while ago.

Electronic Resistance – A Darkwave / Post – Punk Compilation From The Ukrainian Underground 🇺🇦https://t.co/ocpxxKgXfz pic.twitter.com/MvpNFqJS2m

— THROBBING GRISTLE (@ThrobbingGrstle) January 26, 2023

The tweet by The Cure’s frontman has now propelled the compilation back into the bestselling industrial music charts on Bandcamp on spot 3. As you can see it is being joined by Alfa Matrix’s The Cure tribute releases “A Strange Play – Tribute to The Cure“ and “A Strange Play (Vol. 2) – Tribute to The Cure“.

Below is said compilation and it’s follow-up, the recently released “Electronic Resistance – Reconstruction”.

Side-Line also covered The Cure’s ‘Curepedia: The A–Z of The Cure’.

Eldrina Mich

As Eldrina Mich I work as a go-between and a devil’s advocate when it comes to Side-Line. If our own staff needs to be interviewed then ask the questions no one else dares to ask.

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Coitus Interruptus Productions and Crunch Pod are to release “Channeling The Solar Lodge”, a free Coil tribute compilation next month. The tribute will offer 20 different electronic and experimental projects covering their favourite Coil track.

Bands featured on this compilation will be the following ones (next to their names you’ll find teh respective tracks they will cover):

• AkA – Artillery Night Space
• Brien Hindman – Boken Fabiola
• Dead Receptors – Defrag
• Dreamscape Invocation – Empusae
• Fetal Distress – Flint Glass
• Fluxion A/D – God Module
• Grave of the Opal Golem
• Law-Rah Collective – Manufactura
• Morlox – Michael Idehall – NDSTRY
• The Present Moment – Pyroclastic
• Snowbeasts – Sylvgheist Maëlström
• Talvekoidik – Theodor Bastard – XISIX

About Coil

Coil were an experimental music group, founded in 1982 in London, England and concluded in 2005. Initially envisioned as a solo project by musician John Balance (of the band Psychic TV), Coil evolved into a full-time project with the addition of his partner Peter Christopherson (formerly of pioneering industrial music group Throbbing Gristle).

Balance and Christopherson were the only constant members; other contributors throughout the band’s career included Stephen Thrower, Danny Hyde, Drew McDowall, William Breeze, Thighpaulsandra, and Ossian Brown.

After the release of their 1984 debut EP “How to Destroy Angels”, Coil joined Some Bizzare Records, through which they released two full-length albums, “Scatology” (1984) and “Horse Rotorvator” (1986). After departing from Some Bizzare, Coil established their own record label, Threshold House, through which they produced and released “Love’s Secret Domain” (1991).

In 1985, the group began working on a series of soundtracks, among them the rejected score for the first “Hellraiser”.

Financial difficulties slowed the group’s work in the early 1990s before they returned to the project on releases such as “Astral Disaster” (1999), and the “Musick to Play in the Dark” series composed of “Vol. 1” (1999) and “Vol. 2” (2000), as well as releasing several projects under aliases such as Black Light District, ELpH, and Time Machines.

The group started several smaller independent record labels, including Eskaton and Chalice. The group’s first live performance in 16 years occurred in 1999, and began a series of mini-tours that would last until 2004.

Following the accidental death of John Balance on 13 November 2004, Christopherson announced via that Coil as an entity had ceased to exist, ending the Coil discography with “The Ape of Naples” (2005).

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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Out on October 23 via Cold Spring is a reissue of the Coil best of releases “A Guide For Beginners – The Voice Of Silver” and “A Guide For Finishers – A Hair Of Gold”, this time as a 2CD set. The two releases have been out of print on CD for almost two decades.

Officially licensed from FEELEE, this edition spans Coil’s entire career, featuring tracks from all their major albums. They were hand-picked by Coil to represent their best work and originally released to mark their first performance in Moscow in 2001. The vinyl-only edition by FEELEE was released as two separate luxurious 2xLP editions in 2018.

Here are two tracks from the set. The first being “At the heart of it all”.

“Ostia (the death of Pasolini)”

Coil, a project in itself

Coil was originally founded in 1982 as a solo vehicle for Geoff Rushton aka John Balance (he also joined Psychic TV at this time), before evolving into its permanent core duo with the addition of his partner and fellow PTV member Peter ‘Sleazy’ Christopherson. Christopherson had previously been an original member of industrial music legends Throbbing Gristle and a partner in leading design agency Hipgnosis, later becoming a go-to music video director.

Having left Psychic TV ahead of their 1984 debut EP, “How To Destroy Angels”, Coil signed to Some Bizarre Records for the release of the albums “Scatology” (1984) and “Horse Rotorvator” (1986). They then established their own label, Threshold House, to issue the landmark 1991 album “Love’s Secret Domain” plus a record of additional material from the LSD sessions entitled “Stolen & Contaminated Songs” the following year.

The remainder of that decade saw releases from pseudonymous projects such as ELpH vs. Coil, Black Light District and Time Machines, plus the soundtrack for Derek Jarman’s “The Angelic Conversation”, before a return to ‘regular’ studio output such as “Astral Disaster”, two volumes of “Musick To Play In The Dark” (1999 and 2000) and “Black Antlers” (2004). They also began performing live shows in 1999 and played a series of mini-tours over the next five years.

The final Coil album, “The Ape Of Naples”, was compiled by Christopherson following the accidental death of Balance in 2004 at the age of 42 and released at the end of the following year. Christopherson himself died in 2010 at just 55.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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Coil fans, attention, you will not want to miss out on this one! Out in a few weeks (closer to June) but already available for pre-order via Bandcamp, is the “Swanyard” 3LP Vinyl (available here) and 2CD set (available here).

This new release holds – hold tight – nearly 150 (!!) minutes of previously unreleased Coil recordings. The material was all written and recorded between 1993 to 1996 and was selected and assembled by Danny Hyde (Electric Sewer Age, ex-Coil, ex-Psychic TV, ex-Black Light District) from the studio archives.

The artwork for the release was delivered by Steven Stapleton, from a recalled dream by Jhon Balance. The mastering was executed by Martin Bowes (Attrition) in a Cage Studio.

Tracks:

• Spastiche (5:42)
• Heaven’s 98 Horror mst (11:52)
• Siminon Master Backwards (Swanyard demo) (6:28)
• Jhon’s House Tune from GM Guide – Protection (5:36)
• Spastiche (basic) (6:46)
• AYOR Master (It’s in my Blood) (6:40)
• Original Amber Rain (demo) (4:51)
• Wur CLK Wir 1993 (2:05)
• Crumb Tune (master) (6:00)
• The March of Time (extra version) (8:56)
• Spastiche – The Night’s alive (master) (5:34)
• Kusnir Jazz (2:39)
• Heavens Blade (John Balance vox demo) (7:25)
• Wur CLK Wir 1998 mst vox (18:35)
• The Test early mst (2:17)
• AYOR (extra version) (4:29)
• Elves (master) (6:35)
• Heaven’s Blade (Inst) 1993 (8:24)
• Melotron Song (amber rain demo) (2:51)
• March of more Time (master) 1993 (6:27)
• Crumb Tune (4:20)
• Simon (extra long) (6:10)
• Egyptian Basses 1993 (7:18)

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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In 1996 the album “A Thousand Lights In A Darkened Room” was released by the band Black Light District which was basically a production by Coil. The alias was one of a few assumed by them in the mid-nineties for putting out drone based music (and also a name of a song by Boyd Rice on the compilation cassette “Bethel”).

This album now gets released as being a Coil release with the title “Black Light District” and with an unreleased bonus-track. The team who worked on the material consisted of John Balance, Peter Christopherson, Drew McDowall and Danny Hyde.

You can order the album right here.

The material on this reissue was remastered by Martin Bowes (Attrition) with the bonus track being taken from the “Black Light District” recording session. Also added are Danny Hyde’s comments in the booklet.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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