Coil
Musick To Play In The Dark

Bandmates Peter Christopherson and John Balance were allegedly holed up in a Victorian mansion in the almost-forgotten English seaside town of Weston-Super-Mare, in the midst of a drug binge when they got cracking on Musick To Play In The Dark. Location aside, it's hardly the most original genesis of an album, but nevertheless the end product was a sign of just how talented the artists are - give the average person a bag full of powders and pills and ask them for a record. Then see what happens.

Coil's tenth album arrived in 1999, bookending one part of their story and beginning the next. It's here the players opted to embrace ambient, glitch, minimalism and 'kosmische musik' - experimental rock sub-genre 'cosmic music' popularised in West Germany during the late-1960s. Or, to use the outfit's own terminology, they invented 'moon musick', marking their transition to a "lunar group". The results are mesmerising.