If you have a spare £200, then you might be interested in “Colour Sound Oblivion” the new Coil DVD box set.

As you can imagine, it has a fair few items inside:

1. an individually numbered disc (similar to those worn by dancers in go-go bars). Numbers in the Patron’s Edition (ie from #1 – 200) are in RED (as shown), numbers in the Official Pre-Order Edition are in BLUE
(#201 – #however many are ordered in the next four weeks).

[The Post Release Regular edition when it comes out will be un-numbered.]

2. Four hand-made cloth bags in the same (or similar) fabric Coil’s costumes were made from, each containing the dvds of concerts where those costumes were worn… fluffy, glowing, reflective (mirrored) and
shrouded.

The boxes and bags have proved rather more daunting to make than originally anticipated so its likely the regular edition, will include a single, smaller “sampler cloth” lining a smaller box.

3. The dvd collection itself, features 14 show dvds (of which the first two, being shorter and without extras, are very rare half-silvered dvds) plus a two dvd “COIL RECONSTRUCTION KIT” containing more than 4 hours of projection animations and processed footage PLUS the accompanying backing-tracks to all the songs in question, Karaoke-style (though without super-imposed lyrics). These are here released under a Creative Commons License, by which you are free to sample, re-loop and otherwise, “molest” or “interfere” with Coil’s music and animations to your hearts content (as long as its not for commercial gain).

In most cases the dvds of the shows are “dual angle” so you can switch from the live feed, to the projections as they were on the day, and back, using the angle button on your dvd remote, while the audio
continues. Whenever we have extra footage, be it from backstage, from interviews done around the time of the show or whatever, we have included it on the disc after the show.

NOTE: As you will see, for all but a few of the shows, these films were NOT shot professionally, but by amateur camera-persons who just love Coil and did not want to lose or forget their experience. At the time
I’m sure they did not think what they were shooting would be seen by anyone but their close friends. It’s thanks to them this extra-ordinary record exists. They just didn’t realise they had so many close friends!

In some cases they were the only person shooting, but if the video and audio is mostly okay, and the show was good and different enough we have included it, regardless.

Where we are lucky enough to have two or more angles of the same show, I have done my best to edit them together to make a more watchable record, but please remember this is Coil you are watching, filmed by all kinds of odd, brilliant people who love Coil enough to have gotten it together back then! – If they are a bit wobbly from time to time, believe me – We were too!

A few of the shows were edited professionally by the crews that shot them, and to all those, we send our thanks and love.

In all but the first disc, which is not really a concert as such but WAS the first Coil Live appearance so deserves to be included, featuring Jhonn Balance and John Gosling at the Air Gallery, London in 1983, all
the remaining discs have chapter markers at the start of each song, so you can quickly step through if you want. Other than that there are NO FANCY MENUS, easter eggs or anything else.

4. In addition the box contains a Collection of more than 100 postcards, 6″ × 4″ to fit the Patron’s Edition frame, in a velour bag. These pictures (almost all unseen till now) taken by Coil or our friends, are
a very personal record of life on the road with Coil… Fortunately there is not a guitar to be seen, though there may be one picture of a tour bus!

5. Lastly Colour Sound Oblivion also contains a couple of small printed pamphlets or booklets – One containing Sleazy’s thoughts, anecdotes, reflections on the being part of Coil Live, and thanks to everyone he can remember – The other a facsimile of the Order of Service of Geff’s (Jhonn Balance’s) Funeral, which took place a month pretty much to the day, after the last show in this Collection… This latter will only be
included in the Patron’s and Pre-Order Editions.