Coil - Time Machines

Time Machines is Coil's landmark drone music album, released under the alias Time Machines. It consists of four tracks which are composed of a single tone, called a drone. Each tone represents a certain hallucinogenic chemical. It is similar to Brian Eno's early ambient albums, except instead of creating an atmosphere of calm, it facilitates time travel, according to band founder John Balance. Each tone was tested and retested in the studio for maximum narcotic potency. John Balance described the album as an attempt to create "temporal slips".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Machines



"We attempted to dissolve time." That's how the late John Balance, half of the now disbanded British experimental musical duo Coil, described the aim of their 1998 release Time Machines (Eskaton). Balance said this with such matter-of-factness that you hardly notice the ludicrousness of his claim. No mere sensation-hungry dabblers when it came to tearing down the doors of perception, Coil certainly had reason to stand behind their assertion. Having logged countless hours drifting in the lapping tides of Time Machine's slowly unraveling synthesizer drones, I can tell you that Balance and musical partner Peter Christopherson definitely succeeded in their attempt. Coil's m.o. with Time Machines can be best summed up by the title of Spacemen 3's 1990 demos compilation Taking Drugs to Make Music to Take Drugs To (Bomp). Starting from the premise that hallucinogens can remove oneself from one's temporal reality, Balance and former Throbbing Gristle member Christopherson (with assistance from William Breeze and Drew MacDowell), set out to synthesize music that would catalyze and tease out the temporally-disruptive effects of specific chemical compounds. If that sounds a bit dry, there is indeed an aura of scientific self-seriousness to the release. Each composition is titled with the chemical name of the substance it has been designed for - track one, "Telepathine" (an earlier term for the compound found in Ayahuasca or yage, popularized by Burroughs and Ginsberg); track two, "DOET/hecate"; track three, "5-Me0-DMT"; and track four, "Psilocybin." But for Coil, science was another form of magic, something driven home by the album's cover design: a black, glossy oval that alludes to the obsidian "scrying mirror" of Renaissance magician and astronomer John Dee, who supposedly used the stone to conjure spirits. (A limited number of albums also came with a set of stickers that when placed on top of each other depicted Dee's sigil, the Hieroglyphic Monad). I should confess, with much embarrassment, that for the many times and many different contexts in which I have listened to Time Machines, I have yet to experience any of the tracks while on the substances for which they were specifically engineered. That said, the album's transportive effects are noticeable even while listening sober (and are certainly heightened by strong doses of THC). My experience has largely been subtractive: it is hard to do anything or to think about anything with much success, or even "actively listen," while Time Machines is playing. It is the aural equivalent of an isolation tank, in that you don't even notice the vessel falling away, you're so immersed. Turn it on, tune in, and dissolve.
Matt Sussman, San Francisco Bay Guardian
http://brainwashed.com/common/htdocs/discog/eskaton10.php?site=coil08



I still have never found a drone album that makes me feel quite like Time Machines does. The members of Coil conceived this project as an exercise in hallucinogenic time travel. The concept, on the surface level, may seem a little overwrought, especially considering the aforementioned song titles. The results are spectacular though. Oscillating sub-bass tones make up the majority of the album, and even with this limited pallet, Balance and Christopherson craft a full work capable of intense movement. Time Machines never instills a feeling of stasis, it is always traveling somewhere. In that way, the concept succeeds brilliantly. The journey may not be into the void or the farthest reaches of your soul, but it can induce a tangible sensation that most drone and ambient artists can only dream of pulling off.
It is unfortunate that Time Machines is one of Coil’s hardest to find albums. Initially planned as a larger body of work and then a reissue, the album’s current status is unknown with the passing of Christopherson in 2010. One must hope those in charge of Coil’s recorded work will give Time Machines the treatment it deserves. I know I personally have it to thank as a gateway into a whole treasure trove of outsider art. Trust me when I say youtube clips and low quality speakers won’t ever do this trip justice.
http://www.tinymixtapes.com/delorean/coil-time-machines



Simply mesmerising. A work that in fact is much more than it seems at a glance. Its reverberating synth drones can fill a room with low bass frequencies which kind of hypnotise you and really take you away. The louder you listen to it, the stronger the effect it has on you... beautiful, haunting and uncanny. (if you´re high, listen to it at your own risk)
Review by perigoso

Not to reiterate, but this is entrancing. Just as good as any hallucinogen, these tracks demand attention. In fact, it's hard to ignore them. Though apparently "background music" this is acidic and amorphous and atmospheric. I see this as one of Coil's grand achievements in that it's a technical masterpiece yet esoteric and abstract enough to make it totally enthralling, too. If I get rid of all my CDs, this one will stay. 

Review by bikefridaywalter

http://www.discogs.com/Time-Machines-Time-Machines/master/21769





Overall impression: excellent. The line on the back of the cardboard two-fold sleeve probably says it best: "4 tones to facilitate travel through time." The four track names are all chemical names for hallucinogens. The music is drone-based, deep ... very deep ... sub-bass drones that somehow seem to entangle with your very thoughts and emotions as they carry you. I listened to this disc twice with headphones while at work earlier this evening, and although I didn't travel through time, feel like I was traveling through time or achieve an instantaneous erection ... it did give me a strange emotional sensation. I really can't explain it .. the drones maintain a similarity throughout each track, but they shift and become altered without you really realizing what's taking place. They remain what I would call "beautiful" drones, they never become too distorted or resonant ... very haunting yet affirming and all consuming. This disc is another welcome tool, alongside the likes of Aphex Twin's "Selected Ambient Works II", Dead Voices on Air, Propeller, and of course, many Brian Eno and Coil discs, in my collection of ambient and/or ambient/drone works. I sometimes think that JB and PC have come across some greater plane of knowledge that allows them to subliminally communicate with your psyche through sound. Their work is remarkable. Also, be sure to check out the latest single, "Spring Equinox: Moon's Milk or Under an Unquiet Skull". Note: I have not, nor do I intend to use the above disc in conjuction with hallucinogens. I'll leave that to you.
Mark Weddle, Brainwashed
http://brainwashed.com/common/htdocs/discog/eskaton10.php?site=coil08