Send "This Mortal Coil " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
 For a while in the 1980s, and to some degree into the following decade, many listeners assumed the London-based 4AD record label was defined by arty goth rock. Bauhaus' slashing, poised aggression may have helped kickstart the label, and Modern English created a new wave hit for the ages with "I Melt With You", but after a few years acts like the gauzy Cocteau Twins and the medieval-Europe-gone-global-instruments of Dead Can Dance ended up being the big sellers, especially among those inclined toward pale and interesting looks matched with black clothing. Right next to these acts on 4AD, meanwhile, was something even more cryptic, a band that never toured, that never really was a band at all: This Mortal Coil.This Mortal Coil, the subject of a new comprehensive box set, was in the public eye an encapsulation of 4AD's sound and style spread out over three albums and associated singles and one-offs. And though founder Ivo Watts-Russell didn't want This Mortal Coil to be seen as a label vanity project, there was nothing more classically "4AD" from a listener's point of view. Despite the presence of so many performers not signed to the label and the fact that nothing else on 4AD actually sounded like This Mortal Coil, nothing else spoke more to the idea of what the label seemed to be. The band's identity came not from a specific individual person or group of people but from a sprawling series of studio efforts, packaged in moody cover designs courtesy of photographer Nigel Grierson and designer Vaughn Oliver and always featuring model Pallas Citroen, a kind of monolithic, black-and-white take on Roxy Music's own remarkable run of covers over an earlier decade. Producer/engineer John Fryer, Watts-Russell's key collaborator across the releases, helped maintain a mood of poised, shadowy romanticism, part dark ambient grind and part late-night string-laden recital. This approach to production was combined with Watts-Russell's desire to celebrate obscure songs both old and more recent and transform them into something new and stunning. The project offered a mix of familiar and unknown voices and songs, performers sometimes appearing only for a single song, even simply an instrumental (such as Dead Can Dance associate Peter Ulrich, taking a bow on Filigree & Shadow with the percussion piece "At First, and Then", never to reappear)....full text |
| Theseconddisc |
| Beggar’s Archive has announced a comprehensive box of the music of This Mortal Coil, 4AD Records’ beloved dreampop collective. Though the band was anchored by label head Ivo Watts-Russell, they were far from the “house band” at 4AD. Featuring a free-flowing lineup that featured members of Dead Can Dance, The Cocteau Twins, Dif Juz and the Pixies, the band was crafted, per the official website, ”to allow artists the creative freedom to record material outside of the realm of what was expected of them.” With offbeat covers of relatively unusual or obscure songs – Tim Buckley’s “Song to the Siren” is one such early example – the group indeed challenged and pleased underground audiences from 1983 until 1991. Before retiring from the industry, Watts-Russell created a project, The Hope Blister, that was very similar to This Mortal Coil’s ambient sonic stylings, albeit with a fixed lineup. The four-disc box set will feature remastered, Japanese-pressed HDCD editions of the band’s three albums – It’ll End in Tears (1984), Filigree & Shadow (1986) and Blood - with newly redesigned gatefold artwork by Watts-Russell and Vaughan Oliver, a longtime collaborator with 4AD. While those three albums will be released separately at a later date, this box will include a bonus disc featuring the band’s three non-LP singles in full, a track from a multi-artist compilation and two previously unreleased songs intended for a single with Rough Trade but unused. And be on the lookout, HD fans: plans are afoot for the entire box to be released on Blu-Ray along with video content under the title Tears in the Dropbox. For now, the set comes out November 8 in the U.S. and a day early worldwide. Hit the jump for order links and the track list. (Due credit to our pals at Slicing Up Eyeballs for getting to this story first.)...full text |
| Factmag |
| It’ll End In Tears (1984), Filigree & Shadow (1986) and Blood (1991) form the backbone of the set, but also featured is an exclusive fourth disc, Dust & Guitars, which collects all the band’s singles as well as a clutch of previously unreleased tracks. Each album has been remastered from the original analogue studio tapes by John Dent. Each album within the two-piece box is packaged in a paper gatefold sleeve printed by the Ichikudo in Japan, with inner sleeves, booklets and obi-strips. The sleeves have been re-designed This Mortal Coil’s Ivo Watts-Russell and Vaughan Oliver, the man behind 4AD’s distinctive visual identity. This Mortal Coil, active between 1983 and 1991, was founded and led by 4AD boss Ivo Watts-Russell, and was something of a studio supergroup, calling upon the talents of members of various 4AD and related groups, including Cocteau Twins, Cindytalk, The Wolfgang Press, Dif Juz, Rema-Rema, Colourbox, The Pixies and Dead Can Dance. With the help of his collaborators and producer John Fryer, Watts-Russell developed a sweeping, gothic-hued dream-pop sound that would become synonymous with 4AD at large, and its influence can be seen on a huge number of acts that have come since, from Massive Attack and to The xx and Zola Jesus....full text |
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