COIL/ELpH/LEE RANALDO-FRISK-ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK RECORDING, UNRELEASED, 1996, UK/USA

Oh my…yes, I do believe I have a show stopper for you all. This soundtrack to Todd Verow's film adaption of Dennis Cooper's novel "Frisk" (IMDB info here) features original compositions by both Coil (also using their alter ego ELpH here) and Sonic Youth's Lee Ranaldo, as well as a handful of pieces they've co-composed and/or have had pastiched together, medley-style. All of this loot has languished on this soundtrack up till this point without any formal release. Now, here it is for your collective predilection and as a stand-alone gesture in its own right,  it works a charm.

The entirety of this film is up on Youtube here, so you can reach your own conclusions about it in cinematic terms, but the effectiveness of the soundtrack that Coil and Ranaldo have devised is immediate and undeniable. Coil's opening theme sets things propulsively in motion with an excellent and very 90's bit of motorik rock akin to Kreidler's work of the time but they achieve equally gripping ends with the languid abstract guitar essay "The Sleeper". Elsewhere, Coil alternate between offering up glistening spectral electronic tones, re-tooling their opening gambit, plying some of their acid house moves of the era and applying the sort of delicacy and shading they'd soon bring to bear on their Musick To Play In The Dark albums.

Ranaldo contributes just about exactly the sort of timbral and textural guitar interventions you'd anticipate from the gentleman and these work a charm as well. Their individual efforts tend to be more remarkable than the small handful of tracks here where the two concerns combine forces but the overall cohesiveness and impact of this work is undeniable. Coil's closing gambit in particular reminds me why Clive Barker once remarked that they were the only band that could make his bowels churn: it's easily among their most sinister and penetrating moments and a fitting coda to a harrowing story.

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