Coil — The Ape Of Naples

It is just over a year since Jhonn Balances untimely death from a fall at home. Since then there has been little or no activity from Threshold House apart from the promise of a full realised album based on work Coil had been developing over the last two years.

For most fans that meant full versions of songs like The Gimp, Sex with Sun Ra and Black Antlers which were being premiered live during 2004 and emerged in demo form on the limited edition CD Black Antlers. The Ape of Naples however is not that album.
It contains mostly reworked and rerecorded versions of Coil classics like Amethyst Deceivers, Teenage Lightning, and A Cold Cell. It also has many tracks that were pencilled in for the debunked Backwards record on Trent Reznor’s Nothing label. This being the case however I would reassure fans that this is for me the most definitive collection of Coil material and does contain some new songs that showcase a group that went out at their peak.

The first track is one such new offering, Fire of the mind is a gorgeous montage of choral synths, Hurdy-Gurdy and Marimba supplied by Cliff Stapleton and Tom Edwards respectively. Balances voice is a revelation and sings through with power and direction on death and apocalypse in classic Coil tradition. "Does death come alone or with eager Reinforcements?" asks Balance in that prophetic manner that so many Coil songs seem to have in hindsight.
Of the reworked tracks The last Amethyst Deceiver and Teenage Lightning 2005 are the most successful. The former being drawn out into a ten minute work-out of minimal word play and electronics. There are a few extra pieces of text that muse on other birds (apart from the Vultures, who are still our future) and some quite amusing couplets on "Little Mushrooms". The real percussion from Tom Edwards and Mike York lend the track a quite classical feel reminiscent of Harold Budd’s otherworldly compositions on the Pavilion Of Dreams.

Teenage Lightning has been given a similar update with Marimba and piano replacing much of the originals techno backbone. It’s quite a similar version to the one being played by Coil in their last few shows but benefits from the studio rendering and excellent mix from Christopherson.
A Cold Cell is stripped down from it’s drifting form on the Russian only Coil compilation and more attention is now paid to Balances voice. The choral refrain comes in after a minute or so of  Balances musings and a light bass like picking of an unidentified instrument. The field recordings of city sounds that finishes the original are missing and the song is about two minutes shorter than the Russian version.
The other two newer songs are Tattooed Man and Triple Sun. Both of which have been given live outings but exist here in recorded form for the first time.
Tattooed Man harks back to the melancholic song writing for Horse Rotorvator and is a quite melodic song with Balance singing a curiously ambiguous lament for a lost love. Although the narrative is as obscure to make any straightforward conclusion on the subject matter impossible. The music is a mid passed heady mix of Hurdy-Gurdy, organ and percussion.
Triple Sun is a mostly instrumental track with one of Christophersons classic melodies over which Tom Edwards and Mike York spin their lines of Marimba and Duduk. Balance repeats the strange line "Then I Swallowed The One Yew Bury"

The albums finally Going Up is a fitting end to Coils recorded Career and is a combination of Melodic synth lines and strings which are guided by another Christopherson melody, this time conveying an atmosphere of melancholy and sadness, feelings that flow through so many of these new versions. The melody builds and is joined by yet more floorless work from Stapleton, but it’s the contribution of soprano falsetto Francois Testory that really takes the breath away. She seems to float in on a ray of light and her immensely emotional voice fills the room in a way that seems at odds with the other material on the album but after a minute or so seems as natural as could be. The fact she’s singing the lyrics to British comedy show Are you being served is not obvious. It’s the central refrain of "Going up" that gives this piece such elemental power. Funerary in it’s mood, so very English in it’s subject but so very Coil in its delivery. This track seems to sum up both Coils sensibility and Balances so tragic situation.
The Ape Of Naples is not a perfect album but it is a perfect statement of where Coil were and ultimately ended in 2005. It’s a showcase of both Balances unhinged prophetic geniality and Coils unearthly magic, and should be the first port of call to any new fan wanting to investigate this most unique of musical entities.