Culture Club

Coil was an English cross-genre, experimental music group formed in 1982 by John Balance—later credited as "Jhonn Balance"—and his partner Peter Christopherson, aka "Sleazy".[1] The duo worked together on a series of releases before Balance chose the name Coil, which he claimed to be inspired by the omnipresence of the coil's shape in nature. Today, Coil remains one of the most influential and best known industrial music groups.

Coil worked in such genres as industrial, noise, ambient and dark ambient, neo-folk, spoken word, drone, and minimalism, creating what Balance explicitly referred to as "magickal music".[10] Balance described early Coil work as "solar" and the later work as "moon musick".[10]

Coil incorporated many exotic and rare instruments into their recordings and performances. The group expressed particular interest in modular synthesizers, including the Moog synthesizer.[38][39] Coil are among the few artists who have been granted permission to use the one-of-a-kind experimental ANS photoelectronic synthesizer (see ANS). Other instruments the group incorporated into their music included the theremin and electronic shakuhachi. During Coil's later period, marimba player Tom Edwards joined the group, and performed on the live albums Live Two and Live Three, as well as on the studio album, The Ape of Naples.

Coil utilized techniques such as the cut-up technique, ritual drug use, sleep deprivation, lucid dreaming, granular synthesis, tidal shifts, John Dee-like methods of scrying, instrument glitches, SETI synchronization and chaos theory.

Although Coil expressed interest in many musical groups, they rarely, if ever, claimed to be influenced by them. Coil explicitly stated the influence of such non-musical sources as William Burroughs, Aleister Crowley, Bryon Gysin and Austin Spare.[10] Furthermore, the group were friends with Burroughs and owned some of Spare's original artwork.[39]

Balance encouraged fans to trade, discuss and discover new and different forms of music, stressing the importance of variety. Music that Coil expressed interest in is diverse and wide-ranging, from musique concrète to folk music to hardcore punk to classical. Among the musicians Coil expressed interest in were early electronic, experimental and minimalistic artists: Harry Partch, La Monte Young, Karlheinz Stockhausen (once referred to by Balance as "an honorary member of Coil"), Alvin Lucier, and Arvo Pärt.[38][47][48] Coil also expressed interest in krautrock groups including Cluster, Amon Düül II, Can, Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream. Rock musicians and groups Coil have expressed interest in are: Angus Maclise, Captain Beefheart, Flipper, Leonard Cohen, Lou Reed, Nico, Pere Ubu, The Birthday Party, The Velvet Underground and The Virgin Prunes.[10][27][38][47][48][49] Coil expressed an interest in the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky, and in 1986 used a sample of a piece of his music on the Horse Rotorvator song "The Anal Staircase". Furthermore, on the album Black Antlers Coil dedicated a song to Sun Ra and covered a song by Bam Bam.[50]

Coil's influence on electronic music has become more evident since the death of Balance, with electronic musicians from all over the world collaborating on a series of tribute albums. Some notable artists who appear on these albums are Alec Empire, Chris Connelly and K.K. Null (see ...It Just Is). Nine Inch Nails front-man Trent Reznor also expressed the significant influence that the group had on his work in February 2014:[51]

[Coil's] 'Tainted Love' video remains one of the greatest music videos of all time. I was always more attracted to Coil than Throbbing Gristle; the darkness and the scatology really chimed with me. If it's not immediately obvious: Horse Rotorvator was deeply influential on me. What they did to your senses. What they could do with sound. What Jhonn was doing lyrically. The exotic darkness of them permeated their work.[52]

The track "At The Heart Of It All" (found on Scatology) later became the name of an Aphex Twin track on the Nine Inch Nails remix album Further Down the Spiral; Coil also provided remixes for Further Down the Spiral. Furthermore, in 2010, Reznor, Mariqueen Maandig and Atticus Ross started a new band called How To Destroy Angels—named after the Coil song—which received Christopherson's blessing after Reznor made contact with him.[52]

Edward Hopper, July 22, 1882 – May 15, 1967, Greenwich Village, was a prominent American realist painter and printmaker.

Biosphere 2 is an Earth systems science research facility. It has been owned by the University of Arizona since 2011. Its mission is to serve as a center for research, outreach, teaching, and lifelong learning about Earth, its living systems, and its place in the universe. It is a 3.14-acre (1.27-hectare)[1] structure originally built to be an artificial, materially closed ecological system in Oracle, Arizona, US by Space Biosphere Ventures, a joint venture whose principal officers were John P. Allen, inventor and Executive Director, and Margret Augustine, CEO.

Constructed between 1987 and 1991, it explored the web of interactions within life systems in a structure with five areas based on biomes, and an agricultural area and human living and working space to study the interactions between humans, farming, and technology with the rest of nature. It also explored the use of closed biospheres in space colonization, and allowed the study and manipulation of a biosphere without harming Earth's. The name comes from Earth's biosphere, "Biosphere 1".