COVER IMAGE
3LP released: Mar 15, 2024

Tracklisting:
1. Moon's Milk Or Under An Unquiet Skull (Part 1)
2. Moon's Milk Or Under An Unquiet Skull (Part 2)
3. Bee Stings
4. Glowworms / Waveforms
5. Summer Substructures
6. A Warning From The Sun (For Fritz)
7. Regel
8. Rosa Decidua
9. Switches
10. The Auto-asphyxiating Hierophant
11. Amethyst Deceivers
12. A White Rainbow 08:52
13. North
14. Magnetic North
15. Christmas Is Now Drawing Near
16. Copal
17. Bankside
18. The Coppice Meat
19. Pel (Incense Offering)
COIL
MOON'S MILK (IN FOUR PHASES) [CLEAR VINYL]
Label: DAIS RECORDS
Cat No: DAIS188LP-C2
Barcode: 683950557185
Packaging: 3LP Set

First compiled as a double CD in 2002, Moon's Milk (in Four Phases) is a suite of four EPs that Coil released seasonally via their in-house Eskaton imprint across 1998. The line-up for these sessions were John Balance, Peter "Sleazy" Christopherson, Drew McDowall, and William Breeze. Recorded primarily at their home studio in Chiswick, London on the eve of a permanent relocation to the small seaside town of Weston-super-Mare, the collection has long loomed as a pivotal and pinnacle work in the group's discography, but has never been officially reissued, or repressed on vinyl. Time has only ripened its tapestry of regal strangeness. Arranged sequentially in tribute to the equinoxes and solstices, Moon's Milk captures Coil at a revelatory crossroads, leaning deeper into improvisation, spontaneity, and sound design. "Moon's Milk or Under an Unquiet Skull" initiates the proceedings on Spring Equinox, a two-part netherworld organ s ance woven from vocal drones, cathedral keys, seasick strings, and opiated undertow. From there, Summer Solstice skews lighter but no less incantational, with Balance embracing his voice-as-instrument across lucid dream torch songs ("Bee Stings"), purgatorial spoken word ("Glowworms/Waveforms"), sultry chamber pieces ("Summer Substructures"), and falsetto ravings ("A Warning From The Sun (For Fritz)"). Autumn Equinox exudes more of a pensive and twilit mood, from the Rose McDowall-sung folk ballad "Rosa Decidua" ("I hear your voice sing near to me / I've put away the poisoned chalice (for now) / And lie down amongst the flowerbeds") to hall-of-lords hallucination "The Auto-Asphyxiating Hierophant" to the liminal string-plucked classic "Amethyst Deceivers," featuring excellent alien guitar by Breeze layered with Balance's oft-quoted couplet: "Pay your respects to the vultures / For they are your future." The album's final chapter, Winter Solstice, is its most swooning, remote, and ceremonial. Opener "A White Rainbow" stirs strings, layered choral vocals, and shivering rhythm into an imploding burial hymn. "North" oscillates bleakly, a ghost in the machine murmuring opaque prophecy ("This black dog has no owner / This black dog has no odour"), while "Magnetic North" is its inverse, a guided meditation of gently flickering software and surreal chakra poetics ("Red rose filling the skull / Yellow cube in the lower pelvis / Silver moon crescent below the navel"). The suite fades to grey with a traditional English carol ("Christmas Is Now Drawing Near"), rendered like an executioner's song by Rose McDowall's doomed, beautiful voice. The Dais box set includes the entirety of the rare Moon's Milk Bonus Disc CD-R / 2019 Threshold Archives CD, which includes three collaborations with Thighpaulsandra. This material is as rich and intoxicating as the previous four phases, ranging from electro-acoustic singing bowl rituals ("Copal") to dissonant electronic recitations of visionary Angus MacLise poetry ("The Coppice Meat") to ominous classical melancholia ("Bankside"). Once again, Coil confirm the vastness of their confounding, infinite alchemy, explored and refined across decades of experimentation - both sonic and bodily. From post-industrial to post-everything, theirs is an art untethered, in the wilds of its own design.

You may also like...

COIL
A THOUSAND LIGHTS IN A DARKENED ROOM 2LP
COIL
CONSTANT SHALLOWNESS LEADS TO EVIL CD
COIL
CONSTANT SHALLOWNESS LEADS TO EVIL (CLEAR VINYL) 2LP
COIL
CONSTANT SHALLOWNESS LEADS TO EVIL (LIMITED EDITION: GREEN SPLATTER ON CLEAR VINYL) LP
COIL
CONSTANT SHALLOWNESS LEADS TO EVIL [2LP] (TRANSPARENT GREEN COLORED VINYL) 2LP
COIL
MOON'S MILK (IN FOUR PHASES) 3LP
COIL
MOON'S MILK (IN FOUR PHASES) 2CD
COIL
MUSICK TO PLAY IN THE DARK CD
COIL
MUSICK TO PLAY IN THE DARK 2LP
COIL
MUSICK TO PLAY IN THE DARK (2LP-MILKY WHITE) LP
COIL
MUSICK TO PLAY IN THE DARK [2LP] (CLEAR ORANGE VINYL) LP
ArtistTitleFormatLabel
COIL MUSICK TO PLAY IN THE DARK 2 CD DAIS RECORDS
COIL MUSICK TO PLAY IN THE DARK 2 2LP DAIS RECORDS
COIL MUSICK TO PLAY IN THE DARK 2 (CLEAR VINYL) 2LP DAIS RECORDS
COIL MUSICK TO PLAY IN THE DARK 2 [LP] (CLEAR BLUE VINYL) LP DAIS RECORDS
COIL QUEENS OF THE CIRCULATING LIBRARY LP DAIS RECORDS
COIL QUEENS OF THE CIRCULATING LIBRARY CD DAIS RECORDS
COIL QUEENS OF THE CIRCULATING LIBRARY (TRANSPARENT BLUE VINYL) LP DAIS RECORDS
COIL QUEENS OF THE CIRCULATING LIBRARY [LP] (CLEAR VINYL) LP DAIS RECORDS
COIL TIME MACHINES 2LP DAIS RECORDS
COIL TIME MACHINES CD DAIS RECORDS
COIL TIME MACHINES (CLEAR GREEN VINYL) 2LP DAIS RECORDS
COIL USICK TO PLAY IN THE DARK 2LP DAIS