Worship the Glitch

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

Rosemary Brown, Music Medium

Rosemary Brown (1960-2001), Music Medium

The renowned David Toop once wrote, "Sound is a haunting, a ghost, a presence whose location is ambiguous and whose existence is transitory. The close listener is like a medium who draws out substance from that which is not entirely there." (¹) But what is meant by "there"? If the sound presented is incomplete, is there a ghostly presence that fills the void?

Let's consider Rosemary Brown, a British housewife who claimed to have been visited by a strange tall man with long, white hair when she was seven years old. Decades later, he revealed himself as the ghost of Franz Liszt, the once-famous composer. Liszt dictated a musical piece to her, and with some supernatural help, guided her hands on the piano. Not only Liszt, but also Bach, Grieg, Debussy, Schubert and Chopin lined up to dictate their unfinished musical business. Brown recorded these pieces and gained fame, at least in England, where citizens cherish their oddities and preserve them at all costs.

However, there is one riddle: how could Brown write and play these seemingly complex pieces of music with only minimal piano training during her childhood?

(¹) David Toop, "Sinister Resonance: The Mediumship of the Listener", Continuum 2010

by Doc Nachtstrom