6. CoilApe Of Naples
The perfect album. It’s their last proper album, released after the lead vocalist John Balance had died, but Coil do what I will never be able to do. There’s a perfect balance of electronic and organic and, even thematically, there’s a lot of magic and old English pagan mysticism that fed into their lyrical content.
One of my favourite bits of music is the final track ‘Going Up’, which sums up Coil perfectly, but is also quintessentially English. It’s quite a slow, beautiful, sad track and they have a guest vocalist singing in falsetto in a very emotional way, and then you realise they’re actually playing the theme tune to that terrible 1970s sitcom Are You Being Served? really slowly, and the operatic voice is singing the lyrics to the tune.
So, there’s a mixture of pathos and straight up comedy but in a British way and it really appealed to me. I want this music to be played at my funeral. If I was a guest on Desert Island Discs this album would be coming with me.
