Coil - Astral Disaster (1999)

The immediate predecessor to Musick To Play In The Dark (although this remixed & expanded version was released a few months after Musick came out), Astral Disaster was recorded over Halloween (reclaimed as "Samhain" here) 1998.  Gary Ramon of psychedelicists Sun Dial, then on hiatus, invited the new Coil to his London studio where their first proper album emerged after an six-year venture into alter-ego projects.

As mentioned above, Ramon issued the album in 1999 on his own label but in just 99 copies (until a reissue last year) - this is the Threshold House edition, resplendent in its Steven Stapleton collage cover.  Three short tracks intersperse with three epic, mind-warping journeys that showed that Coil was definitely back in business, having built on their experimental years and now fleshed out by new core member Thighpaulsandra.  The Crowleyan monologue of The Sea Priestess looks forward to the coming of Musick, and album closer MÜ-ÜR anticipates Queens Of The Circulating Library.  Late-era Coil had been born.

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