Threshold Houseboys Choir "The Threshold Houseboys Choir Amulet Edition"

Do you like COIL? Do you like Throbbing Gristle? Do you like COUM Transmissions? Do you like Psychic TV? Do you like Soisong? Do you think I'm starting to get boring?
I asked you these questions because a former member of all these bands, Peter Christopherson, decided to create a new project after COIL's end. Threshold Houseboys Choir was the name chosen by Peter. It can be labeled as experimental electronic composition, along with some noise, oriental-ish sounds, etc. Wiki also entitles it as "Post-Industrial Exotica". When performing live, this project evolves to a different stage: videos of some rituals occuring in Thailand, morbid, gore and violent clips along and mind-warping at the same time are added to the performance of Threshold Houseboys Choir. THBC's myspace can be viewed by clicking here.
"The Threshold HouseBoys Choir is a musical guise for Peter Christopherson, announced in 2005 as a follow up endeavor to his former group Coil. Despite the name, it is a solo project which relies heavily on computer generated vocals, of which he is formally credited as the "director." The name was derived from a play on words, combining the terms houseboy, house of boys, boys' choir, and Threshold House.[1] THBC is stationed in Krung Thep, Thailand."

The Amulet Edition was sold on THBC's tour and now can be bought on the official merchandise website, here, or on eBay or Amazon at astonishingly high prices. It comes on a fine velvet pocket, I think, which over 3 cd's.
The track list is the following:
1.Be Happy 16: 12
2.Distonto 23: 16
3.Ikoreek 22: 15
4.The Hangman's Ball 19: 31
5.As X is to Geff 10: 20
6.Khun Cap Taxi 18: 03
7.Lowly Low 13: 42
8.There and Back 5:09
9.The Day Moon Died 15:51

Next, if you want to, you can hear some samples of the songs: "The Day the Moon Died", "The Hangman's Ball" and "Distonto". My favourite tracks are: "Be Happy", "Distonto", "Lowly Low" and "There and Back".
If you want to buy the album go to Threshold House's official website and find some THBC merchandise.
If you want to hear the part 1 (which features the first 4 songs) click here and/or the part 2 (which has the last tracks and the track from the 3rd CD, which is the last one) click here.


"Be happy" can be heard below:

COIL "Love's Secret Domain"

Surpassing Beatle's L.S.D. for sure, this legendary COIL album is brilliantly haunting. By hearing this record, you can recognize how their self-induced madness aims [at the listener] are achieved.
It's an astonishing collection of despair-flavoured tracks, that only make the listener fall more deep into COIL's audible abyss.
This album contains 13 tracks:

1. "Disco Hospital" – 2:18
2. "Teenage Lightning 1" – 1:49
3. "Things Happen" – 4:22
4. "The Snow" – 6:41
5. "Dark River" – 6:27
6. "Where Even the Darkness Is Something to See" – 3:05
7. "Teenage Lightning 2" – 5:09
8. "Windowpane" – 6:11
9. "Further Back and Faster" – 7:55
10. "Titan Arch" – 5:02
11. "Chaostrophy" – 5:37
12. "Lorca Not Orca" – 2:04
13. "Love's Secret Domain" – 3:52

The ones I prefer are: "Chaostrophy", "Dark River", "Love's Secret Domain" and also "Windowpane".
This is for certain a must have for any COIL or industrial / experimental eelctronic music fan.
The cover work seems to look like an abandoned door carved with awkward drawings, being a forbidden entrance to a social taboo path.
Comparing this one to other COIL records, I don't think it's the one with the darker mood.
Released in 1991 (although it was recorded during January 1988 to October 1990) its lenght is 60 minutes and 34 seconds. Pierro Scaruffi, an Italian-American culturan historian, rated it 6 out pf 10; All Music rated with 4.5 out of 5 stars. I'd rate it as 7 out of 10 though.
Get the album here.

Next is "Dark River"'s videoclip:

COIL's discography

Ok, if you don't know COIL, you better kill yourself... No wait, please don't do it! Ok, speaking more seriously, this band started with Peter Christopherson and Jhonn Balance in 1982, following their departure from Genesis P-Orridge's industrial group called "Psychic TV". First, they started working on a project called Zos Kia, which had only 4 live performances and one release (a cassete tape called Transparent, in 1984).
Later, Jhonn and Peter would meet Boyd Rice and the ecletic band Current 93. This just shows how stable the relationships among this esoteric movement were.
Their first record as COIL was "How to destroy angels". That same year, 1984, they also made the album "Scatology", with was their most "industrial" album, according to fans and critics and myself. They got their name album derived from the word "scatter", hence the name "Scatology".
Next was release "Horse Rotorvator", an album that speaks about death and existential dilemmas: listening to this one was like feeling the last seconds before you were stomped by the horse on the album's cover (shot with fisheye lens). It's my favourite album so far. It was released in 1986.
Love's Secret Domain- L.S.D.- was the next album launched into stores. Also quite "industrial" and now with more influences of the genre "Post-Punk" this album was well succeeded and even one of its songs, Tainted Love, was featured [and still is] on The Museum of Modern Art in New York.

As the wind of time blew, they got more experimental and got swallowed by drone influences (see their album "Time Machines" here- pt1 and pt2), noise (like in the album "Constant Shallowness leads to Evil") and many, many times, their characteristic 90's style: melodramatic harmonies, lullabies that could haunt many humans.
With Jhonn Balance's death some years later, the band had found its end. Their last album- Ape of Naples - was an amount of songs they recorded more than one decade ago (e.g. amethyst deceiver) and songs they recorded some months ago. The album is so fluid, so coherent, it depicts the band's efforts to express themselves (particularly, Jhonn...). Inside this album, there are some photographies that are a metaphoric representation of death: there's a beautiful sunset, a hanged man, a lamb with its legs amputated, a zoomed dark crow and a dead seahorse (semi-preserved in a similar state of a fossil). The name "Ape of Naples" comes from a time when Jhonn and Peter worked on a shop of gay bootleg videos: they invented names for those items and one of them was "Ape Of Naples" (there's also one which is "Black Antlers" that's an album released by them).
If you want most of this band's albums you can check this spot or this one, if you prefer torrents.
This is the infamous "Tainted Love" videoclip:

Next, I'll show you one of COIL's few live videos on youtube:





Their official myspace is this one here. If you really enjoyed this band, there are super-limited editions available on their online shop, some of them very rare...and some album downloads, if you want to. Go to Threshould House and check it out.Please, promote the artists- they deserve it.