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| ELpH vs Coil "Worswhip the Glitch" Vinyl |
The legendary Industrial Music-Duo Coil was always at the forefront when
it came to using audio technology as a vehicle for the "Otherworld"
("Time Machines"). In the midst of the band's highly
creative and turbulent 1990s, Peter Christopherson and Jhonn Balance (both sadly deceased) noticed strange glitches in their equipment during various sessions.
And Coil wouldn't have been Coil, of course, if the two original
artists hadn't immediately personalized this occurrence; as "ELpH",
a hybrid of machine and spirit being:
“During
the studio sessions that developed into what would become ‘Worship
the Glitch’, Coil became aware of random compositions emitting from
their gear, and were at odds with constant ‘accidents’ that were
perpetually plaguing the recordings. The band called these
unintentional emissions ‘ELpH’: a conceptual being that is one
part physical equipment, one part celestial being… constantly
playing the role of trickster, throwing a wrench into Coil’s
methodology. Eventually, these accidents and mistakes were embraced
by the band, and the process of misusing audio software to create
intentional ‘errors’ was adopted as a musical technique. The
acceptance of the ‘mistake’, and the use of discovered mistakes
as intentional elements slowly became the drive and concept behind
the album, thus birthing the title ‘Worship the Glitch.“(¹)
For me personally, Coil
were always quite great, admirable rogues, who knew exactly how to
get their listeners and fans in the right mood - with mysterious,
self-invented urban legends. They always work: "Worship the
Glitch" may or may not come from a ghost, the music creates a
very strange, unreal feeling in any case - and that even without
colorful pills and 4/20 technology (I would recommend the former only
to experienced psychonauts at Coil sessions anyway).
"Worship the Glitch" was released in 1995 under the band
name ELpH vs Coil. It should be noted that already one year before
the EP "Born Again Pagans" was released under the band name
Coil vs ELpH. There are no surviving explanations for this, but on
the original release there are such wonderfully enigmatic notes as:
"Patent Pending 184" or "Taken from the forthcoming
double compilation CD 'The Sound of Music' (Threshold House Records -
Due Spring 1995)" - a release that of course never existed.
(¹)https://www.daisrecords.com/products/elph-vs-coil-worship-the-glitch
by Doc Nachtstrom
