Love's Secret Domain

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Artist:
Coil

Title:
Love's Secret Domain

Genre:
Experimental

Publisher No.:
(1991) TVT Records - TVT 7143-2

Comments:
Cyrung plays didjeridu on 'Dark River', 'Where Even the Darkness is Something to See' and 'Further Back and Faster'. It is a 'studio' album with very non-linear editing.
Reviewer: John Morfit

But generally what happens is on any specific project we have to go out and find people that we think would be suitable for it and we're constantly on the lookout for people who have similar sensibilities and general ideas but that can bring in new or different musical strengths and quite often this happens in the so called coincidental manner. For example on L.S.D. the didjeridu player that we used we just happened to see on a cable TV program and wanted to get in touch with him and tried to get in touch through the cable station but were unable to do so and then about a month later when we were in the studio we went out totally by chance to get something to eat and we bumped into him in the street, so you know, those opportunities are not to be missed really. Cyrung, who played on the album is really amazing. We were a bit worried about folding it up and cutting it up and everything and he sort of said no, no do whatever you want with it, take it somewhere else. I think people sort of think that our music is fundamentally sampled, and although it's true to say that the structures are Macintosh sequence-based, we certainly don't have any precious attitude towards computers. If it's possible to fuck them up then we will. And likewise, we'd rather use a live musician when they're going to bring qualities that the computer is not able to do. When we have people with whom we feel we have an empathy we like to set up a sympathetic circumstance in which they can do their thing for like a few hours and then we take that and sort of manipulate it, cut it or whatever. It's really a good way of working. It was the same with Cyrung and the same with the Spanish guitar player that we used on the record.
Reviewer: John Balance (of Coil)

Love's Secret Domain (domestically available on Wax Trax!) is a fascinating aural descent into a rather delightful and exalted Inferno. This is a realm inhabited by rabid Spanish guitars, Annie Anxiety impersonating herself as drugged-out Mexican whore, sampladelic mixing techniques, warped electronic voices, neurologically correct noise, didgeridoo, oboes and bowed strings cast South of Heaven, Burroughsian cut-ups of film dialogue, all fornicating somethin' awful in a multidimensional sonic landscape, and presided over by those charming and intelligent Goat-Gods, John Balance and Peter "Sleazy" Christopherson. Those familiar only with John and Peter's past lives as members of Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV, may be surprised that in this chaotic landscape the lamb lies down with the lion. Pieces of surprising beauty-such as "Dark River," sounding like the grinding and scraping of the celestial spheres or some monstrous bells-are also to be discovered amidst the musical mayhem.
Reviewer: Mondo 2000

...With complex beats built from samples running through most tracks, Love's Secret Domain is a further evolution of Coil's simultaneous interest in physical rhythms and meditative textures...The results can be exulting, as in "The Snow," where electric piano tinkles away above sampled rhythms and processed vocals, or foreboding, as in "Titan Arch," where apocalyptic Lovecraftian lyrics are intoned by Marc Almond over a background of controlled guitar feedback and ominous keyboard patterns...John Balance's lyrics, as usual, examine big issues like death, love and hate through a cryptic, symbolist lens, although they're less morbid this time around.
Reviewer: Scott Lewis (of All-Music Guide)

Coil's release is a real walk on the wild side of digeridoo, but some of the more ambient pieces in the middle show how this instrument can be stretched. The digeridoo is not on all tracks, but can't be missed on those tracks where it appears.
Reviewer: Jeff Johansen, WUJC