Queens of the Circulating Library

2000’s Queens Of The Circulating Library, first released on the date of a live performance later released as Coil Presents Time Machines, was a truly unique album in the entire oeuvre of Coil for one simple reason: Peter Christopherson did not appear on it. Instead, the core duo here was John Balance and fairly recently joined member Thighpaulsandra, along with the latter’s mother Dorothy Lewis providing readings of Balance’s lyrics. Consisting of the sole title track, the nearly fifty-minute composition is in general line with the more drone/near-ambient work of the band at that time of the millennium’s turn, beginning with a slowly repeating loop of sound that is further accentuated and worked against by various interspersions of samples and other elements as a roiling undercurrent. It never quite overtakes the main loop but keeps things from simply being a slow repeat. Lewis’s lyrical readings provide a remarkable contrast to what Balance would likely have brought then, her introductory and self-consciously dramatic (and effectively so) interjections slathered in echo, helping set the cryptic mood for what follows.