Stegzy's Music Project

A commentary on Stegzy's album collection

It’ll End in Tears – This Mortal Coil [#644]

Gloomy collaborative music by Evo Watts’ music project This Mortal Coil.

Like Mike Oldfield’s Islands this was also part of a x for £xx deal at the Virgin Megastore in Liverpool (now Claus Ohlson). I mourn the passing of record shops and their x for £xx deals, this is not an offer the likes of Amazon, iTunes and their ilk seem to foster. I was drawn to This Mortal Coil and their 1984 album It’ll End in Tears via the 4AD Uncut Compilation CD and David Lynch’s Lost Highway in which the band’s cover of Tim Buckley’s Song of the Siren featured and marked the beginning of me being a little more adventurous with my music choices. However I only became aware of them following the rerelease of the album in the nineties.

Of course, this was in the nineties so music downloading hadn’t really taken off in the UK due to the crapness of internet connectivity but it quickly became a prized item in my music library. Especially as it made me feel that I appeared cultured and with it to my Guardian reading, coffee table book owning friends at the time.

Hipster? moi? Nah my trousers are not corduroy and I don’t own a penny farthing.

Apologies for the break in posts last week, I’m still rebuilding my music library following an IT issue with my iMac, and have just returned from a holiday in Dorset so posts will be a little sporadic for a few weeks. However, please do not feel I’ve abandoned this project or stopped writing, I haven’t. Keep an eye out on my other blog, the Compostual Existentialist over the next few weeks for details of my recent holiday.

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Filigree & Shadow – This Mortal Coil [#468]

FiligreeandshadowClassic goth moonings brought to the listener by Ivo Watts-Russell’s 4AD label and their rag tag bunch of artists brought together under one banner.

Filigree is TMC’s second offering. Like other TMC offerings, the personnel making up the band are picked from a variety of 4AD artists such as Dead Can Dance (Peter Ulrich) and Cocteau Twins (Simon Raymonde) but while not as popular, well known or groundbreaking as the first, It’ll End in Tears, Filigree does hold its weight with some interesting interpretations of obscurely excellent songs. Originally released as a double album with each side an aural blend, the masterful production was lost on release in CD format and moreso in digital file.

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Blood – This Mortal Coil – (#200)

Blood - This Mortal CoilBlood – This Mortal Coil 

Back to the 4AD stable and this time with Ivo Watt’s This Mortal Coil (TMC) project.  This album appeared on many coffee tables in the 1990s until it was buried under more mature offerings by similar bands, kebab wrappers and copies of X-Files magazines. To be forgotten about until discovered once more and consigned to the “Oxfam” box.

Blood is TMCs difficult second album. There are a few good tracks where the original lineups sound demonstrated in It’ll End in Tears  is almost replicated but I think by the time you get to track 15 it’s getting a bit tiresome.

TMC take some obscure masterpieces from forgotten artists and albums like Spirit, Ray Harper and Chris Bell and give it the ethereal gothy shoegazer treatment. Crafting an album so full of mournfulness that even the person on the album cover feels sorry.

Don’t get me wrong though, this is not a bad album and it is still better than the third TMC attempt,  Filigree and Shadow. But unless you’ve come to TMC as a fanboy, hipster or wanting to feel a bit morose, then Blood is probably not your cup of bitter tears.

 

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