UNNATURAL HISTORY III: JOYFUL PARTICIPATION IN THE SORROWS OF THE WORLD

COIL's third collection of stray tracks that found their way onto various formats including limited edition releases, various artists comps and B-sides. UNNATURAL HISTORY III: JOYFUL PARTICIPATION IN THE SORROWS OF THE WORLD collected another ten tracks and was released in 1997 and essentially captured the last of the odds and sods of the first fifteen years of COIL's existence. As with all COIL material, the core duo of John Balance and Peter Christopherson were responsible for the development of the tracks but a few friends such as Chris Carter, Cosey Fanni Tutti, Drew McDowall, J.G. Thirlwell, Andrew Poppy, Bill McGhee and Martyn Phillips contributed here and there and added their personal touches.

Once again, UNNATURAL HISTORY III displays a wealth of forgotten mind trips that didn't make it onto the official album releases and honors the wealth of diversity that COIL implemented as they transcended the boundaries of ambient, darkwave, industrial and the avant-garde to create sound collages unlike any other. While the material is surprisingly diverse in its approach, a few factors carried on from the previous UNNATURAL HISTORY compilations. Firstly, the love of lazy mid-tempo almost trip hoppish beats that provide the basic groove for all the wild and woolly experimental touches to swirl upon and a healthy love of bizarre multi- dimensional trips that incorporated various sound samples. "First Dark Ride" displays this perfectly as a big fat beat allows chimes and other bizarre synthesized sounds to compound around.

Danny Hyde aka Aural Rage is credited for writing some of the tracks and his stylistic approach appears on tracks like "Baby Food" which eschew an overt beat and instead implement an overlapping series of bizarre musical scales with different timbres. Sort of like alien church organs on a world with a helium based atmosphere. It's also one of the band's more known tracks as it appeared on the 1993 compilation "Chaos In Expansion" which appeared on the underground Sub Rosa label. "Music For Commercials" sounds unlike anything COIL had done before. It's perhaps the most cheery and uplifting music they ever could have imagined. While originally the B-side of the "Hellraiser 10," the short run of various melodic developments that change it up often were supposedly used in real TV commercials.

Tracks like "Panic 12" Version" show perfectly how COIL was starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel with these stray tracks as it is somewhat weak. It's essentially the Dionysian remix of the B-side of their single "Tainted Love." It's basically a boring industrial beat with some screams and cheesy synthesizer sounds thrown in. Skinny Puppy without the inspiration so to speak. One for the dance floor but not one that matches their high quality musical marksmanship. "Neither His Nor Yours" is a cool Japanese sounding track that mixes some cool polyrhythms. It was donated to raise money for AIDS projects in New York City. It's also quite industrial with a heavy percussive drive and bleak atmosphere. "Feeder" is one of many avant-garde classical sounding tracks. Sort of like John Cage with a slight beat and random sound effects.

There are many more industrial beats on UNNATURAL HISTORY III: JOYFUL PARTICIPATION IN THE SORROWS OF THE WORLD compared to the previous compilations. While i've always considered this third installment of the trilogy the weakest of the three, this is by no means a bad collection of disparate material existing side by side. While some tracks are filler and could've been left in the vaults, the majority is a killer mix of the usual surreal intricate compositional constructs with that unmistakable Balance / Christopherson mix of lunacy while some of the tracks that imbibe the industrial nectars were clearly intended to be one offs for various projects that wouldn't be associated with COIL's main body of work. While all tracks are not created equal the first side is as good as anything on the other comps and nothing on the second side is bad per se, just not as OMG exceptional either.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< o >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Here is the extensive UNNATURAL HISTORY III (JOYFUL PARTICIPATION IN THE SORROWS OF THE WORLD) of each track's previous release:

Third in a series of anthology discs collecting tracks that originally appeared on various compilations and limited edition releases.

"First Dark Ride" was originally released on the Coil vs. The Eskaton 12″ "Nasa Arab". "Baby Food" was originally released on the compilation Chaos in Expansion. "Music for Commercials" originally appeared on the 10″ & cassette versions of The Unreleased Themes for Hellraiser. According to John Balance, "Panic" was mislabeled in the CD booklet as being the 'Dionysian' remix, commenting, "But then again, isn't everything Dionysian."[1] "Neither His nor Yours" was originally released on the compilation A Diamond Hidden in the Mouth of a Corpse. "Feeder" was originally released on the album Core - A Conspiracy International Project by Conspiracy International, a label run by Throbbing Gristle members Chris & Cosey. "Wrong Eye" and "Scope" were originally released on the 7" single "Wrong Eye/Scope". These two songs were released along with "Meaning What Exactly?" on the compilation The Portable Altamont in 1993. "Lost Rivers of London" was originally released on the Ptolemaic Terrascope benefit compilation Succour. The song was later remade and released as "London's Lost Rivers" on the vinyl release of the Black Light District album A Thousand Lights in a Darkened Room.