What do you think?
Rate this book
England's Hidden Reverse, revised and expanded edition: A Secret History of the Esoteric Underground
Definitive history of Coil, Current 93 and Nurse With Wound-a peculiarly English underground phenomenon. Deluxe paperback edition of last season's bestseller, written with full co-operation of all three bands. Lavishly illustrated with color and black & white photos, including a CD of material from Nurse With Wound, Current 93 and Coil. Cover designed by Stephen Stapleton.
"A superb document that effortlessly unravels the intricacies of his protagonists and their relationship to post industrial England."-The Wire
528 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2002
100 people are currently reading
1990 people want to read
About the author
David Keenan
25 books160 followersDavid Keenan is an author and critic based in Glasgow, Scotland. He has been a regular contributor to The Wire magazine for the past twenty years. His debut novel, This Is Memorial Device, was published by Faber in 2017.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 65 reviews
February 13, 2021
This book is a complete whitewash.
In looking at one of the most interesting music scenes of the ‘80s and ‘90s, it removes the more politically incorrect bands (Death In June, Fire + Ice, Allerseelen, Boyd Rice, and even The Moon Lay Hidden Beneath A Cloud) from the picture, thus making World Serpent music safe for ‘consumption’ by oily hipsters in the 2000s (Tony Wakeford, after jumping through hoops to prove what a good ‘anti-fascist’ he is, gets a token pat on the head).
The same hipsters who leeched onto anodyne black metal bands like Wolves in the Throne Room, scrubbing ‘problematic’ bands like Burzum and Graveland from history in good Orwellian fashion.
When hipsters leech onto something, you know it’s past its creative prime.
In 2020, David Tibet gives art shows in galleries whose curators hold his religious views in amused contempt.
Was the ‘respectability’ really worth it?
In looking at one of the most interesting music scenes of the ‘80s and ‘90s, it removes the more politically incorrect bands (Death In June, Fire + Ice, Allerseelen, Boyd Rice, and even The Moon Lay Hidden Beneath A Cloud) from the picture, thus making World Serpent music safe for ‘consumption’ by oily hipsters in the 2000s (Tony Wakeford, after jumping through hoops to prove what a good ‘anti-fascist’ he is, gets a token pat on the head).
The same hipsters who leeched onto anodyne black metal bands like Wolves in the Throne Room, scrubbing ‘problematic’ bands like Burzum and Graveland from history in good Orwellian fashion.
When hipsters leech onto something, you know it’s past its creative prime.
In 2020, David Tibet gives art shows in galleries whose curators hold his religious views in amused contempt.
Was the ‘respectability’ really worth it?
April 27, 2019
During the 90's, I got pretty heavily into goth and industrial music; the darker and stranger, the better. In the course of my explorations, I discovered a label in the UK, World Serpent Distribution, that handled a number of artists who scratched that itch for me. The band names almost didn't matter since everyone seemed to play on everyone else's albums anyway.
Fast forward to the present day, and I'm reading an interview with a band in a music magazine, and they mentioned being influenced by Coil, one of my favorites among the WSD crowd, and they also mentioned a book about Coil and other bands: England's Hidden Reverse. Needless to say, getting my hands on a copy of this book quickly became a priority.
And so here we are.
The book exceeded my expectations. It's something of a history of a particular era and mindset in Great Britain, focusing on three bands in particular: Coil, Current 93, and Nurse With Wound. Other familiar names pop up as well: Death In June, Sol Invictus, Fire and Ice, Nature and Organisation, Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV … The book was quite a trip down memory lane for me, and I expect I’ll be re-listening to a number of CDs in the near future.
Back when I was first getting into this music, interviews with its creators were hard to come by. When I was still in the middle of reading this book, I enthused to a friend, “It's like I’ve finally been given a context for all this stuff!” Obscure lyrics are explained. Sources of peculiar sounds are identified. Influences are cited. Learning more about the folks who made some of my favorite music helps me appreciate it all the more.
As should be apparent, I'm a huge fan of many of the subjects of this book, and my objectivity is nonexistent. How interesting it would be to someone with no prior knowledge of its subject matter is an open question. However, if you’ve heard of any of the bands mentioned above, it is definitely recommended!
Fast forward to the present day, and I'm reading an interview with a band in a music magazine, and they mentioned being influenced by Coil, one of my favorites among the WSD crowd, and they also mentioned a book about Coil and other bands: England's Hidden Reverse. Needless to say, getting my hands on a copy of this book quickly became a priority.
And so here we are.
The book exceeded my expectations. It's something of a history of a particular era and mindset in Great Britain, focusing on three bands in particular: Coil, Current 93, and Nurse With Wound. Other familiar names pop up as well: Death In June, Sol Invictus, Fire and Ice, Nature and Organisation, Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV … The book was quite a trip down memory lane for me, and I expect I’ll be re-listening to a number of CDs in the near future.
Back when I was first getting into this music, interviews with its creators were hard to come by. When I was still in the middle of reading this book, I enthused to a friend, “It's like I’ve finally been given a context for all this stuff!” Obscure lyrics are explained. Sources of peculiar sounds are identified. Influences are cited. Learning more about the folks who made some of my favorite music helps me appreciate it all the more.
As should be apparent, I'm a huge fan of many of the subjects of this book, and my objectivity is nonexistent. How interesting it would be to someone with no prior knowledge of its subject matter is an open question. However, if you’ve heard of any of the bands mentioned above, it is definitely recommended!
April 22, 2025
Though I grew up in the Seventies and Eighties in a fishing shack on the swampy shore of Lake Pontchartrain surrounded by blues and Cajun music, I wasn't too American to not seize the opportunity to fall in love with industrial music.
Somebody who had been friends with my cousin had spent several years abroad in London and Amsterdam, getting his hair sculpted into something out of a Mad Max movie by the Produktion crew at Super Cuts, where Whitehouse could be heard playing overhead all day, and hanging out in squats and clubs around Europe where experimental artists were making musical history. He brought back with him a vast collection of cassettes and LPs by artists like Nurse With Wound, Clock DVA, MFH, Alien Brains, Factrix, CC-HB, Fad Gadget, Club Moral, Etat Brut, De Fabriek, Cabaret Voltaire, and, of course, Throbbing Gristle. He copied a lot of these albums onto cassettes for my cousin, who was more into Iron Maiden than this noisy and weird stuff, but he recognized the potential and gave the tapes out to others to enjoy--mostly to me. By the age of ten, I was devouring all of this wild music, for which I didn't have a name. I would just ask my cousin if he had come by anymore of that "electronic" or "noise" music. So new tapes would be added to my collection, now featuring American avant-garde artists who were following the same European muse, like NON, Z'EV, Monte Cazazza, and all of John Zewizz's many projects.
By the Nineties, the post-industrial boom had introduced the term "industrial" into popular vernacular outside of Europe, and brought the genre into mainstream pop. But I was still digging deep into the underground, finding more examples of the OG industrial through my correspondence with Ron Lessard at RRRecords, and by getting on the mailing lists for music fanzines.
My point in sharing all of this is to emphasize that it was through sheer luck and then through hard work that I learned anything about this wonderful genre and culture that changed my life. Even if you lived in the same country and town where the music was played, it wasn't enough to just be there, because you likely didn't realize what was happening under your very nose. It's not called the underground for nothing. You had to be part of the burgeoning scene. I wasn't. And we didn't have the Internet back then.
Getting into a music scene today is much easier with the wealth of information at our fingertips. But even now, you still won't find much about many of these smaller, do-it-yourself independent outsider artists. At the time "England's Hidden Reverse" first was published, there were really not many ways to dive deep into the lives of these unsung heroes without piecing together various rare interviews and reviews from small music publications.
So as a young adult, I loved this book, because it privileged industrial fans with an intimate look at the lives and artistic development of some of the major innovators in the genre: Steve Stapleton of Nurse With Wound, John Balance and Sleazy Christopherson of Coil, and David Tibet of Current 93. It is the product of years the author spent hanging out with these guys and hearing their stories. The book reads more like a novel than a music documentary or biography. We learn about their diverse backgrounds, and how their interests developed, and how they all came to find each other and work together to change the music world despite none of them being professional musicians.
It's a fascinating and empowering tale that teaches us that if you feel like you don't fit in, make your own way. Follow your passions and interests.
But after reading this book today, I do see its limitations. My first complaint is that the book is dated BECAUSE of technology. Online information is still scarce about a lot of the "hidden reverse", but IS saturated by a handful of bands and artists--three of which are the focus of this book! For example, if you listen to just one Coil album or interview on YouTube, your feed will be flooded with lots more Coil material. That's great! But it does make this book a little less important.
I would have liked if author David Keenan had given some additional attention to other artists in the scene that we don't often hear about. And he does do this to a certain degree, but only out of necessity. This is because all of the experimental artists of the time knew each other, went to each other's shows, attended the same festivals and art actions, played in each other's bands, cut albums with one another, lived with each other, and even slept with each other. We are reminded that Steve Stapleton was actually kind of an original member of Whitehouse, and so through Stapleton's story, we learn about William Bennett's personality. Because Stapleton had his own label, United Dairies, we learn about some of the drama that happened with artists who recorded under his label, like Danielle Dax and Lemon Kittens. One of the coolest stories was how Clive Barker became smitten with John Balance, a flirtation that led the famous horror author to become good friends with both John and Sleazy, even to the point where Barker wanted Coil to do the soundtrack for his upcoming movie "Hellraiser".
But these days, a lot of this inside scoop is now common knowledge to industrial fans. And because it doesn't necessarily focus on the music as much as the personalities and the development of their art, the book is not a great central introduction to curious audiophiles who may one day be potential new fans.
So what we ultimately get is less of a deep understanding of England's Hidden Reverse than what we might expect. Instead, the book tells us about who was screwing who. It romanticizes people getting so shitfaced at their own shows that they could barely perform. It reminds us that amphetamines can make us psychotic.
All of that was fun to read about as a twenty-year-old, but now I'm more hungry to go beyond the gossip. For example, we learn that David Tibet and John Balance easily became "obsessed" with a subject until they got sick of it and moved on to something else. Seriously, Keenan must use the word "obsessed" when referring to these two to the point of obsession. But he never tells us WHY they became obsessed with what they did. He never bothers to put their interest in esoteric, alternative religions, for instance, into any kind of personal or historical perspective. We get just enough information to draw our own conclusions, but Keenan seems content with just writing down their war stories than actually being curious about THEM as PEOPLE. He does a good job capturing their personalities and giving us the rundown of their day-to-day lives (much of it unflattering), and even details about the background production of certain records, but I still felt opportunities were missed to explore the obvious questions.
Maybe what I am looking for is unreasonable, as if I expect Keenan to have approached this as an empathic psychologist and insightful cultural historian rather than as a journalist and sometime-drinking-buddy. In addition, it is probably unrealistic to expect that he would give more attention to a wider selection of artists, because to do so would have been too ambitious and have created a bloated book that didn't give adequate attention to anyone.
So yes, this book is not and cannot be all things to all people. It was the best we had for many years, and still is in a lot of respects. And the ultimate points remain valid. These stories teach us that it is worth stepping out of our comfort zones. There is a whole universe of music out there, much of which you'll never hear if you don't look for it, but if you take the time to find it and experience it, you just might find a language that speaks directly to your soul. Music will do that when it is honest and unfiltered, and all of the artists discussed in this book share that integrity. So people who complain about "today's corporate music" should turn off the satellite radio, enjoy some independent music, and support artists who make music not as a career, but because it their life.
And who knows? Perhaps this book will inspire YOU to march to the beat of your own drum and make a joyful noise.
SCORE: 3.5 rounded to 4
Somebody who had been friends with my cousin had spent several years abroad in London and Amsterdam, getting his hair sculpted into something out of a Mad Max movie by the Produktion crew at Super Cuts, where Whitehouse could be heard playing overhead all day, and hanging out in squats and clubs around Europe where experimental artists were making musical history. He brought back with him a vast collection of cassettes and LPs by artists like Nurse With Wound, Clock DVA, MFH, Alien Brains, Factrix, CC-HB, Fad Gadget, Club Moral, Etat Brut, De Fabriek, Cabaret Voltaire, and, of course, Throbbing Gristle. He copied a lot of these albums onto cassettes for my cousin, who was more into Iron Maiden than this noisy and weird stuff, but he recognized the potential and gave the tapes out to others to enjoy--mostly to me. By the age of ten, I was devouring all of this wild music, for which I didn't have a name. I would just ask my cousin if he had come by anymore of that "electronic" or "noise" music. So new tapes would be added to my collection, now featuring American avant-garde artists who were following the same European muse, like NON, Z'EV, Monte Cazazza, and all of John Zewizz's many projects.
By the Nineties, the post-industrial boom had introduced the term "industrial" into popular vernacular outside of Europe, and brought the genre into mainstream pop. But I was still digging deep into the underground, finding more examples of the OG industrial through my correspondence with Ron Lessard at RRRecords, and by getting on the mailing lists for music fanzines.
My point in sharing all of this is to emphasize that it was through sheer luck and then through hard work that I learned anything about this wonderful genre and culture that changed my life. Even if you lived in the same country and town where the music was played, it wasn't enough to just be there, because you likely didn't realize what was happening under your very nose. It's not called the underground for nothing. You had to be part of the burgeoning scene. I wasn't. And we didn't have the Internet back then.
Getting into a music scene today is much easier with the wealth of information at our fingertips. But even now, you still won't find much about many of these smaller, do-it-yourself independent outsider artists. At the time "England's Hidden Reverse" first was published, there were really not many ways to dive deep into the lives of these unsung heroes without piecing together various rare interviews and reviews from small music publications.
So as a young adult, I loved this book, because it privileged industrial fans with an intimate look at the lives and artistic development of some of the major innovators in the genre: Steve Stapleton of Nurse With Wound, John Balance and Sleazy Christopherson of Coil, and David Tibet of Current 93. It is the product of years the author spent hanging out with these guys and hearing their stories. The book reads more like a novel than a music documentary or biography. We learn about their diverse backgrounds, and how their interests developed, and how they all came to find each other and work together to change the music world despite none of them being professional musicians.
It's a fascinating and empowering tale that teaches us that if you feel like you don't fit in, make your own way. Follow your passions and interests.
But after reading this book today, I do see its limitations. My first complaint is that the book is dated BECAUSE of technology. Online information is still scarce about a lot of the "hidden reverse", but IS saturated by a handful of bands and artists--three of which are the focus of this book! For example, if you listen to just one Coil album or interview on YouTube, your feed will be flooded with lots more Coil material. That's great! But it does make this book a little less important.
I would have liked if author David Keenan had given some additional attention to other artists in the scene that we don't often hear about. And he does do this to a certain degree, but only out of necessity. This is because all of the experimental artists of the time knew each other, went to each other's shows, attended the same festivals and art actions, played in each other's bands, cut albums with one another, lived with each other, and even slept with each other. We are reminded that Steve Stapleton was actually kind of an original member of Whitehouse, and so through Stapleton's story, we learn about William Bennett's personality. Because Stapleton had his own label, United Dairies, we learn about some of the drama that happened with artists who recorded under his label, like Danielle Dax and Lemon Kittens. One of the coolest stories was how Clive Barker became smitten with John Balance, a flirtation that led the famous horror author to become good friends with both John and Sleazy, even to the point where Barker wanted Coil to do the soundtrack for his upcoming movie "Hellraiser".
But these days, a lot of this inside scoop is now common knowledge to industrial fans. And because it doesn't necessarily focus on the music as much as the personalities and the development of their art, the book is not a great central introduction to curious audiophiles who may one day be potential new fans.
So what we ultimately get is less of a deep understanding of England's Hidden Reverse than what we might expect. Instead, the book tells us about who was screwing who. It romanticizes people getting so shitfaced at their own shows that they could barely perform. It reminds us that amphetamines can make us psychotic.
All of that was fun to read about as a twenty-year-old, but now I'm more hungry to go beyond the gossip. For example, we learn that David Tibet and John Balance easily became "obsessed" with a subject until they got sick of it and moved on to something else. Seriously, Keenan must use the word "obsessed" when referring to these two to the point of obsession. But he never tells us WHY they became obsessed with what they did. He never bothers to put their interest in esoteric, alternative religions, for instance, into any kind of personal or historical perspective. We get just enough information to draw our own conclusions, but Keenan seems content with just writing down their war stories than actually being curious about THEM as PEOPLE. He does a good job capturing their personalities and giving us the rundown of their day-to-day lives (much of it unflattering), and even details about the background production of certain records, but I still felt opportunities were missed to explore the obvious questions.
Maybe what I am looking for is unreasonable, as if I expect Keenan to have approached this as an empathic psychologist and insightful cultural historian rather than as a journalist and sometime-drinking-buddy. In addition, it is probably unrealistic to expect that he would give more attention to a wider selection of artists, because to do so would have been too ambitious and have created a bloated book that didn't give adequate attention to anyone.
So yes, this book is not and cannot be all things to all people. It was the best we had for many years, and still is in a lot of respects. And the ultimate points remain valid. These stories teach us that it is worth stepping out of our comfort zones. There is a whole universe of music out there, much of which you'll never hear if you don't look for it, but if you take the time to find it and experience it, you just might find a language that speaks directly to your soul. Music will do that when it is honest and unfiltered, and all of the artists discussed in this book share that integrity. So people who complain about "today's corporate music" should turn off the satellite radio, enjoy some independent music, and support artists who make music not as a career, but because it their life.
And who knows? Perhaps this book will inspire YOU to march to the beat of your own drum and make a joyful noise.
SCORE: 3.5 rounded to 4
August 20, 2018
I discovered Coil at age 15 and immediately fell in love. Jhonn and Sleazy helped ease this queer boy’s confusion, guided him through assorted chemical journeys, and kept him wondrous of the world. So as soon as word reached me that someone had actually gone and written a book about them, I simply had to get my paws on a copy.
You will certainly get more out of it if you’re a fan of Coil, C93, or NWW, but even if you’re not, it’s a fascinating window into the lives and opinions of an exceptional group of people, spanning several distinct eras.
One thing that I liked in this story was how many celebrity cameos there were. Stockhausen, Burroughs, Kenneth Anger, Trent Reznor, these I was not surprised to learn were tied to the musicians of the scene. But Boy George? Tiny Tim? Honest-to-god Madonna? Between all that (and Marc Almond, Judy Dench, and the other big names in their orbit), how on Earth did Coil retain their relative obscurity? The book is also loaded with mentions of esoteric/occult/outsider artists from (mostly) Britain’s past; it left me with at least half a dozen writers hitherto unknown to me that I’ll need to investigate in full later on.
Anyway, there was never a dull moment in reading England’s Hidden Reverse, and to those fans of Coil or the others who aren’t sure whether to pick a copy up, you simply must not hesitate. It’s also loaded with very nice color photographs, which was a lovely surprise.
You will certainly get more out of it if you’re a fan of Coil, C93, or NWW, but even if you’re not, it’s a fascinating window into the lives and opinions of an exceptional group of people, spanning several distinct eras.
One thing that I liked in this story was how many celebrity cameos there were. Stockhausen, Burroughs, Kenneth Anger, Trent Reznor, these I was not surprised to learn were tied to the musicians of the scene. But Boy George? Tiny Tim? Honest-to-god Madonna? Between all that (and Marc Almond, Judy Dench, and the other big names in their orbit), how on Earth did Coil retain their relative obscurity? The book is also loaded with mentions of esoteric/occult/outsider artists from (mostly) Britain’s past; it left me with at least half a dozen writers hitherto unknown to me that I’ll need to investigate in full later on.
Anyway, there was never a dull moment in reading England’s Hidden Reverse, and to those fans of Coil or the others who aren’t sure whether to pick a copy up, you simply must not hesitate. It’s also loaded with very nice color photographs, which was a lovely surprise.
June 14, 2018
A really great and comprehensive primer on that special niche of dark, occulty, groundless, gothy musical stuff that came out of England starting in the 1970s. The book focuses primarily on three bands: Coil, Current 93, and Nurse with Wound. I’m not a Current 93 fan and though the book has a big crush on David Tibet and that particular group, I still found it fascinating to read. It’s interesting to see where this stuff comes from and it turned me on to a lot of things of which I was previously unaware, including many other books, other bands and even painters. These folks were doing some revolutionary outsider art and this work allows a unhindered look at the dark tapestry that brought them together and in the darkness bound them. Not for the very squeamish or close minded but I imagine such a person wouldn’t be picking up such a gnarly volume to begin with. Recommended for fans of art that works to banish fear through exposure to darkness.
December 1, 2024
This book’s a hell of a read—a deep dive into the chaos and creativity of Britain’s underground music scene. You’ve got Current 93, Nurse With Wound, Coil—the heavy hitters—plus a lineup of others like Whitehouse, Psychic TV, and Throbbing Gristle skulking in the background. David Keenan knows his stuff. He’s talked to everybody, dug up all kinds of stories—some wild, some ugly—and lays it all out in a way that makes you feel like you’re right there, caught in the middle of it all.
But here’s the thing: the book’s got a blind spot. And it’s not small.
Keenan’s got some kind of beef with Douglas P. and Death In June, and it’s obvious. They barely make the cut. For a band that was a big part of this scene, their role is either ignored or brushed off with a snide comment or two. Meanwhile, guys like William Bennett —who stirred up just as much trouble, if not more—get the royal treatment. Keenan digs into their controversial stuff, frames it as high art, but when it comes to Death In June, he slams the door. No nuance, no balance, just silence.
Then there’s World Serpent Distribution. If you were into this music back then, you knew WSD. For a lot of us, it was our first taste of these bands. Keenan gives the label’s start a nod, but when it falls apart? Crickets. Never mind that the legal fight between Death In June and the label blew the whole thing up, torched friendships, and pretty much ended an era. That’s a story worth telling, but Keenan skips it like it doesn’t matter.
Look, the book’s good. It’s loaded with stories and insights that’ll stick with you. But it’s not the whole story. Keenan’s personal grudges get in the way, and that bias leaves holes you can’t ignore. Great read, sure, but don’t go thinking it’s the full truth.
But here’s the thing: the book’s got a blind spot. And it’s not small.
Keenan’s got some kind of beef with Douglas P. and Death In June, and it’s obvious. They barely make the cut. For a band that was a big part of this scene, their role is either ignored or brushed off with a snide comment or two. Meanwhile, guys like William Bennett —who stirred up just as much trouble, if not more—get the royal treatment. Keenan digs into their controversial stuff, frames it as high art, but when it comes to Death In June, he slams the door. No nuance, no balance, just silence.
Then there’s World Serpent Distribution. If you were into this music back then, you knew WSD. For a lot of us, it was our first taste of these bands. Keenan gives the label’s start a nod, but when it falls apart? Crickets. Never mind that the legal fight between Death In June and the label blew the whole thing up, torched friendships, and pretty much ended an era. That’s a story worth telling, but Keenan skips it like it doesn’t matter.
Look, the book’s good. It’s loaded with stories and insights that’ll stick with you. But it’s not the whole story. Keenan’s personal grudges get in the way, and that bias leaves holes you can’t ignore. Great read, sure, but don’t go thinking it’s the full truth.
January 15, 2025
An engrossing unputdownable read if you are into NWW, CURRENT 93 and COIL. Personally it's only C93 that tugs at my heartstrings yet I was compelled by their mutual growth and story. David Keenan's prose flows and informs all albums with context combined with what truly inspired the musicians.
September 2, 2017
England’s Hidden Reverse is an impressive, illustrated, hard backed volume coupled with a CD of music by Nurse With Wound, Current 93 and Coil.
I read the original 2003 print, published by SAF, but I understand there is an updated and revised edition available.
The text is a fascinating look at the lives of London-based musicians from these and other bands and the interconnected nature of their social and artistic endeavours. The tales are told in a broadly chronological order, jumping from one artist to another in order to express the extent to which these lives and musical careers overlapped. These artists were (or are) true eccentrics, leading extreme lives.
The book details, most often in their own words, the obsessions – magical, musical, sexual and narcotic of Stapleton, Tibet, Sleazy, Balance and others. It includes references to their (often shared) esoteric and literary inspirations – such as Crowley, Spare and Burroughs. It’s a touching and frequently funny read for mature adults interested in experimental post-industrial music of the 80’s and 90’s. For those old enough to remember the persecution of S&M enthusiasts in the gay scene during the Thatcher years, it reminds us of that bizarre witch hunt involving Satanic ritual abuse and body piercing that casts its shadow over UK recent history.
One of the funniest sections revolves around David Tibet’s puppet theocracy. A warning about the dangerous of taking recreational drugs.
“[Having] decided that Noddy is a gnostic deity, then it’s a small step to thinking that I might as well worship Punch and Judy. … Noddy had appeared in the sky crucified, and since Christ was God, therefore Noddy was also God, so he was Goddy.”
The CD is brilliantly odd, and the book is immensely readable. I suspect it isn’t easy to get hold of, but if you can beg, steal, borrow or buy it, you should check it out.
I read the original 2003 print, published by SAF, but I understand there is an updated and revised edition available.
The text is a fascinating look at the lives of London-based musicians from these and other bands and the interconnected nature of their social and artistic endeavours. The tales are told in a broadly chronological order, jumping from one artist to another in order to express the extent to which these lives and musical careers overlapped. These artists were (or are) true eccentrics, leading extreme lives.
The book details, most often in their own words, the obsessions – magical, musical, sexual and narcotic of Stapleton, Tibet, Sleazy, Balance and others. It includes references to their (often shared) esoteric and literary inspirations – such as Crowley, Spare and Burroughs. It’s a touching and frequently funny read for mature adults interested in experimental post-industrial music of the 80’s and 90’s. For those old enough to remember the persecution of S&M enthusiasts in the gay scene during the Thatcher years, it reminds us of that bizarre witch hunt involving Satanic ritual abuse and body piercing that casts its shadow over UK recent history.
One of the funniest sections revolves around David Tibet’s puppet theocracy. A warning about the dangerous of taking recreational drugs.
“[Having] decided that Noddy is a gnostic deity, then it’s a small step to thinking that I might as well worship Punch and Judy. … Noddy had appeared in the sky crucified, and since Christ was God, therefore Noddy was also God, so he was Goddy.”
The CD is brilliantly odd, and the book is immensely readable. I suspect it isn’t easy to get hold of, but if you can beg, steal, borrow or buy it, you should check it out.
November 26, 2018
Wonderful book about some of my favourite people <3
April 2, 2021
Ich hatte ja an anderer Stelle bereits erwähnt, dass es mir allmählich unter den Nägeln juckt, wieder vermehrt musikalische Orbits abseits heimeliger 90er-BM-Kannonaden abzuschweifen. Und das Lesejahr 2021 ist planmäßig durchaus musikalisch geprägt, da der ganze Szene- und Kulturbuchquatsch sonst im Regal einzustauben droht. - Eigentlich jedoch beginnt die Story mit einem schlechten Gewissen. Nämlich jenem, das ich zunehmend verspürte, als ich, vorm Bücherregal stehend, England's Hidden Reverse immer wieder auf später verschob. Denn exakt dieses - wie ich jetzt mit Bestimmtheit sagen kann - Meisterwerk triggerte unlängst nicht nur eine kaum zu erwartende Wiedergeburt meiner Faszination für Experimentelle Musik, der Umstand freut mich auch numerisch, da es beinahe auf den Tag genau fünf Jahre her ist, dass mir ein bis heute guter, wertvoller Freund dies' Buch zum Geburtstag schenkte. Himmel, ich liebe ungerade Zahlen, egal ...
Das Problem mit Begriffen wie Meisterwerk besteht dabei in erster Linie darin, dass sie allzu flächendeckend verwendet werden, was letztlich die Wertigkeit des Begriffs selbst verwässert. Was ein Glück, dass wir's hier mit Sachliteratur zu tun haben, uns den ganzen Rattenschwanz einer Interpretation ersparen dürfen und schlicht von einem Referenzwerk reden können. Erleichterung und Fakt zugleich.
Entgegen der einen oder anderen Behauptung seitens zum Glück weniger Kritikerplebse, Keenan würde hier bewusst verschiedenste Teilstränge im UK-Underground-Künstlerzirkel der frühen 80er aussparen, macht und machte es nur Sinn, sich die drei wichtigsten und prägendsten (und langlebigsten, prä-, inter- oder posthum erfolgreichsten, etc.) Projekte vorzunehmen und genau diese Epizentren so gut es nur eben möglich ist, auszuleuchten. Denn die Formel geht auf: Ohne Coil keinen Techno, ohne Nurse With Wound keinen Industrial/Noise und ohne Current 93 keinen Neo- oder Postfolk. Ohne Balance/Sleazy, ohne Stapleton, ohne Tibet würden wir heuer nicht die Musik hören, die wir hören, wäre die Musik nicht da, wo sie heute ist. Sei es nun schroffes Gepolter oder psychedelisches Gedudel. Wenn man sich hinzudenkt, dass diese ganzen miteinander kulminierenden, begründenden Schlüsselmomente vor wenig mehr als 30 Jahren vor sich gingen, (mehr oder weniger) schlicht passierten, kann man einfach nur ehrfurchtsvoll zurücksinken und sich versinnbildlichen, wie universell der Terminus Musik eigentlich ist ...
Dabei hatte ich freilich Glück, dass die bereits erwähnten drei Größen hier als Fixpunkte gesetzt wurden. Immerhin hatte ich mich mit Coil und vor allem C93 über einige Jahre bereits recht eindringlich befasst, sodass ich beide Bands durchaus zu meinen Lieblingen zähle. O, wie jungfräulich fühle ich mich nach der Lektüre, da's mir fast - beinahe in der Tat - so scheint, als hätte ich bislang nur an der Oberfläche gekratzt. Quantitativ wie qualitativ, denn nicht nur werden viele Entwicklungsschritte der stets variierenden Künstlergruppen und ihrer Kernfiguren genannt, Erstere werden auch ganz konkret in den Kontext der jeweils aktuellen Album-Veröffentlichungen gestellt. Allein die Zusammenhänge zwischen z.B. dem erweiterten Zugang Balance's zu Schwulenpornos Mitte der 80er und welche Auswirkungen das wiederum auf die Musik von Coil hatte, macht Letztere nicht nur greifbarer, es macht sie auch menschlicher und persönlicher, sensibler. Sleazy und Balance, als Paar und Künstler (definitiv ein Begriff, den ich wo es nur geht, versuche zu vermeiden), atmeten die gleiche Luft aus wie ein Marquis De Sade, ein James Baldwin oder vermutlich auch ein Warhol.
Keenan's Herangehensweise an NWW und C93 ist freilich ähnlich geartet, wenn auch das Potential ähnlich mitzureißen wie Coil schwer davon abhängt, wie gut oder schlecht man Stapletons und Tibets Lebensprojekte kennt und schätzt. Und nicht zuletzt, wie wohlwollend man mit den Schrullen der jeweiligen Person umgehen kann oder will. Eine Wertung obliegt hier dem interessierten Geist selbst. Ich für meinen Teil genoss überschwänglich, einmal so etwas wie einen biographischen Einblick in Tibets Werdegang zu haben. (Tibet: Der einzige Christ, den ich um seinen Glauben beneide.) Im Vergleich dazu, habe ich von Nurse With Wound beinahe kaum einen Schimmer. (Ein Problem, bei welchem mir ein gewisser Herr Schneider bereits seine Unterstützung versprach.) In Summe ist man ob der Diversität verschiedenster separat und/oder zusammen arbeitender Charaktere schlicht überwältigt - und verliebt.
Die Herausforderung bei einer (noch so lausig zusammengeschusterten) Rezension zu Sachliteratur stellt vermutlich stets die Bewertung der unterhaltenden Lesbarkeit dar: die Verschmelzung von Fakt und Kommentar, um eine anregende Melange zu generieren, zu bewerten. Nun, Keenan meistert diese (vermeintliche?) Hürde beinahe erschreckend elegant. Nicht nur findet er ein nahezu optimales Gleichgewicht darin, wer wann und warum zu Wort kommt, denn ein Gros des Buches besteht aus originell und clever eingebauten Interview-Segmenten. Er schafft es auch, verschiedene Epöchlein, künstlerische Entwicklungsschritte und die handelnden Figuren so gut anzuordnen und ins Verhältnis zu bringen, dass nicht nur eine Art Sippencharakter, sondern daraus auch ein ungemein schlüssiger Lesefluss entsteht. Kurzum - und ich wiederhole mich hier gerne - Referenzwerk!
Es ist über die Maße erstaunlich und freilich anregend, wie fruchtbar die frühen 80er waren. Sei's nun sexuelle Identifikation, postpolitische Agitation, schlichte Provokation, Drogenexzesse, usw. usf. - Begriffe, die uns in unseren postmodernen (jeweiligen) Szeneselbstverständnissen nahezu alltäglich erscheinen, wurden hier zu einer Erweiterung des Kunstbegriffs zusammengefügt, die wohl nie ganz durchdrungen oder verstanden werden, nur aber retrospektiv heroisiert werden kann. Vielleicht war hier wirklich eine Art Magie im Spiel ...
Das Problem mit Begriffen wie Meisterwerk besteht dabei in erster Linie darin, dass sie allzu flächendeckend verwendet werden, was letztlich die Wertigkeit des Begriffs selbst verwässert. Was ein Glück, dass wir's hier mit Sachliteratur zu tun haben, uns den ganzen Rattenschwanz einer Interpretation ersparen dürfen und schlicht von einem Referenzwerk reden können. Erleichterung und Fakt zugleich.
Entgegen der einen oder anderen Behauptung seitens zum Glück weniger Kritikerplebse, Keenan würde hier bewusst verschiedenste Teilstränge im UK-Underground-Künstlerzirkel der frühen 80er aussparen, macht und machte es nur Sinn, sich die drei wichtigsten und prägendsten (und langlebigsten, prä-, inter- oder posthum erfolgreichsten, etc.) Projekte vorzunehmen und genau diese Epizentren so gut es nur eben möglich ist, auszuleuchten. Denn die Formel geht auf: Ohne Coil keinen Techno, ohne Nurse With Wound keinen Industrial/Noise und ohne Current 93 keinen Neo- oder Postfolk. Ohne Balance/Sleazy, ohne Stapleton, ohne Tibet würden wir heuer nicht die Musik hören, die wir hören, wäre die Musik nicht da, wo sie heute ist. Sei es nun schroffes Gepolter oder psychedelisches Gedudel. Wenn man sich hinzudenkt, dass diese ganzen miteinander kulminierenden, begründenden Schlüsselmomente vor wenig mehr als 30 Jahren vor sich gingen, (mehr oder weniger) schlicht passierten, kann man einfach nur ehrfurchtsvoll zurücksinken und sich versinnbildlichen, wie universell der Terminus Musik eigentlich ist ...
Dabei hatte ich freilich Glück, dass die bereits erwähnten drei Größen hier als Fixpunkte gesetzt wurden. Immerhin hatte ich mich mit Coil und vor allem C93 über einige Jahre bereits recht eindringlich befasst, sodass ich beide Bands durchaus zu meinen Lieblingen zähle. O, wie jungfräulich fühle ich mich nach der Lektüre, da's mir fast - beinahe in der Tat - so scheint, als hätte ich bislang nur an der Oberfläche gekratzt. Quantitativ wie qualitativ, denn nicht nur werden viele Entwicklungsschritte der stets variierenden Künstlergruppen und ihrer Kernfiguren genannt, Erstere werden auch ganz konkret in den Kontext der jeweils aktuellen Album-Veröffentlichungen gestellt. Allein die Zusammenhänge zwischen z.B. dem erweiterten Zugang Balance's zu Schwulenpornos Mitte der 80er und welche Auswirkungen das wiederum auf die Musik von Coil hatte, macht Letztere nicht nur greifbarer, es macht sie auch menschlicher und persönlicher, sensibler. Sleazy und Balance, als Paar und Künstler (definitiv ein Begriff, den ich wo es nur geht, versuche zu vermeiden), atmeten die gleiche Luft aus wie ein Marquis De Sade, ein James Baldwin oder vermutlich auch ein Warhol.
Keenan's Herangehensweise an NWW und C93 ist freilich ähnlich geartet, wenn auch das Potential ähnlich mitzureißen wie Coil schwer davon abhängt, wie gut oder schlecht man Stapletons und Tibets Lebensprojekte kennt und schätzt. Und nicht zuletzt, wie wohlwollend man mit den Schrullen der jeweiligen Person umgehen kann oder will. Eine Wertung obliegt hier dem interessierten Geist selbst. Ich für meinen Teil genoss überschwänglich, einmal so etwas wie einen biographischen Einblick in Tibets Werdegang zu haben. (Tibet: Der einzige Christ, den ich um seinen Glauben beneide.) Im Vergleich dazu, habe ich von Nurse With Wound beinahe kaum einen Schimmer. (Ein Problem, bei welchem mir ein gewisser Herr Schneider bereits seine Unterstützung versprach.) In Summe ist man ob der Diversität verschiedenster separat und/oder zusammen arbeitender Charaktere schlicht überwältigt - und verliebt.
Die Herausforderung bei einer (noch so lausig zusammengeschusterten) Rezension zu Sachliteratur stellt vermutlich stets die Bewertung der unterhaltenden Lesbarkeit dar: die Verschmelzung von Fakt und Kommentar, um eine anregende Melange zu generieren, zu bewerten. Nun, Keenan meistert diese (vermeintliche?) Hürde beinahe erschreckend elegant. Nicht nur findet er ein nahezu optimales Gleichgewicht darin, wer wann und warum zu Wort kommt, denn ein Gros des Buches besteht aus originell und clever eingebauten Interview-Segmenten. Er schafft es auch, verschiedene Epöchlein, künstlerische Entwicklungsschritte und die handelnden Figuren so gut anzuordnen und ins Verhältnis zu bringen, dass nicht nur eine Art Sippencharakter, sondern daraus auch ein ungemein schlüssiger Lesefluss entsteht. Kurzum - und ich wiederhole mich hier gerne - Referenzwerk!
Es ist über die Maße erstaunlich und freilich anregend, wie fruchtbar die frühen 80er waren. Sei's nun sexuelle Identifikation, postpolitische Agitation, schlichte Provokation, Drogenexzesse, usw. usf. - Begriffe, die uns in unseren postmodernen (jeweiligen) Szeneselbstverständnissen nahezu alltäglich erscheinen, wurden hier zu einer Erweiterung des Kunstbegriffs zusammengefügt, die wohl nie ganz durchdrungen oder verstanden werden, nur aber retrospektiv heroisiert werden kann. Vielleicht war hier wirklich eine Art Magie im Spiel ...
January 6, 2019
i went into this book mostly as a coil fan and was familiar with a few current 93 albums. despite not being as familiar with current 93 and not really familiar with nurse with wound at all, i really enjoyed learning about the histories of all these artists ! it was really fascinating to learn about the strange and sad origins of many of david tibet's lyrics. as a biased coil fan, i feel like the book glossed over some their later releases, but im happy enough that there is such a deeply researched book on these bands. this book mentions a million other artists and has given me tons of music to check out. its chock full of great photos too. highly recommen
Read
January 4, 2022Интересная и необычная книга, посвященная биографии нескольких андерграундных британских групп, оставивших свой след в industrial, dark folk и других жанрах. Мне кажется, что эта книга может увлечь даже не слушавшего Coil или Current 93 человека. В ней хорошо представлена жизнь лондонских богемных музыкантов в 80-е и 90-е. Эпатаж и провокации, нонконформизм, творческие и духовные искания и очень, очень много наркоты. Узнала много нового: например, многие из персонажей книги не умели играть на музыкальных инструментах, но с удовольствием читали поэзию 17 века, Кьеркегора и прочую заумь, которая вдохновляла их музыку.
Теперь о недостатках: 1)Создается впечатление, что отобраны "наименее проблемные" группы этих жанров. Death in June и NON упоминаются от силы пару раз, хотя они были активными коллабораторами. Но, похоже, автор решил не влезать в многолетний спор "кто из вас неонацист" - что ж, его можно понять. 2) Нарратив не всегда связный и логичный, мы постоянно переключаемся между историями Coil и Current 93 и Nurse With Wound. Добавьте к этому уйму второстепенных персонажей, который упоминаются по имени или по фамилии или по прозвищу, и есть шанс совсем потеряться в разных байках и историях.
3) Я так и не поняла, как именно они "перепридумали музыку". Автор не пишет о том, на кого и как повлияли эти группы. Как мне кажется, у них скорее был и остается cult following.
Теперь о недостатках: 1)Создается впечатление, что отобраны "наименее проблемные" группы этих жанров. Death in June и NON упоминаются от силы пару раз, хотя они были активными коллабораторами. Но, похоже, автор решил не влезать в многолетний спор "кто из вас неонацист" - что ж, его можно понять. 2) Нарратив не всегда связный и логичный, мы постоянно переключаемся между историями Coil и Current 93 и Nurse With Wound. Добавьте к этому уйму второстепенных персонажей, который упоминаются по имени или по фамилии или по прозвищу, и есть шанс совсем потеряться в разных байках и историях.
3) Я так и не поняла, как именно они "перепридумали музыку". Автор не пишет о том, на кого и как повлияли эти группы. Как мне кажется, у них скорее был и остается cult following.
April 26, 2017
Líneas que unen puntos.
Puntos que son tenues estrellas negras cuyos cantos arropan y aterran por igual a los durmientes.
Estrellas que trazan constelaciones invisibles.
Puntos que son tenues estrellas negras cuyos cantos arropan y aterran por igual a los durmientes.
Estrellas que trazan constelaciones invisibles.
October 29, 2023
Legends of the British experimental industrial underground……they’re just like us!
April 19, 2025
Здорово, что есть книга, позволяющая немного заглянуть в контекст, в котором родилась такая специфическая волшебная музыка.
November 7, 2014
I downloaded this to read on Scribd, as first-print copies are now going for around £200-£300 on eBay and other used book sites. I think there's a cheaper re-print due out soon, so I may buy one of those.
"England's Hidden Reverse" concerns the art and music scene built around three (interconnected) groups: Psychic TV/Coil, Nurse With Wound and Current 93. Coil consisted of the late John Balance (formerly Geoff Rushton) and Peter 'Sleazy' Christopherson. N.W.W. was pretty much built around Stephen Stapleton, with help from various collaborators. Current 93 was much the same, except with David Tibet at the helm.
All of them started in the late 1970s/early 1980s, following the post-punk flourish in 1977 and 1978. While they themselves had little to do with back-to-basics rock, they found the D.I.Y. spirit liberating. Stapleton himself was a devotee of left-field groups, especially German progressive music. They also shared interest in the occult, particularly the writings of Aleister Crowley, Austin Osman Spare and John Dee and Edward Kelly. Balance and Christopherson were also gay and brought their sexuality into their music as well.
Keenan, a (former?) writer for UK underground/obscure music magazine The Wire, chronicles the development of both the happenings and records of the three groups - starting with their childhoods. Tibet's seems the most exotic, being born in Malaysia to English parents and returning to England at about age 11. He romanticises England as he felt like an outsider for most of his life. Stapleton was an obsessive record collector who journeyed to Germany to meet some of his musical heroes, before finally recruiting a couple of friends to make a noise album. Christopherson was part of the Hipgnosis art collective, but after meeting Cosey Fanni Tutti and Genesis P-Orridge - formed proto-Industrial group Throbbing Gristle. Balance was a fan of T.G. and other noise bands and met up with Sleazy, eventually becoming his partner in music and life.
There's loads of detail and eyewitness accounts given for time in the studio and early live gigs by the main players (supplemented with like-minded cohorts: Drew McDowall, Rose McDowall, Stephen Thrower and Thighpaulsandra, etc.). Stapleton and Coil became mainly studio concerns after a couple of disastrous early shows (though Coil did perform live for a bit shortly before Balance's untimely death). I admit to finding the N.W.W. and Coil accounts more interesting than Current 93. Tibet seems to be too flighty and inclusive - swapping ideologies and tastes quite often. The Current 93 tracks I've listened to have a maudlin charm, but rarely does the actual music have any spark. He also kept some dubious company*, like Tony Wakeford (of neo-folk band Sol Invictus), Douglas Pearce (of Death In June), William Bennett (of 'power-electronic' noise merchants Whitehouse) and Boyd Rice. Keenan does his best to make most Current 93 releases sound like essential listening, but perhaps I'm missing something in the music.
In spite of that and Keenan's implied snobbery (he wrote for "The Wire", after all), it's a good account of an overlooked grouping of non-musicians and visual artists, who created their own niches and are still active now (with the exception of Coil) - the photo section at the end of the book provides a great bonus to the text.
*See the "Who Makes The Nazis?" blog for more information on the fascist leanings of D.I.J., Boyd Rice and Tony Wakeford
"England's Hidden Reverse" concerns the art and music scene built around three (interconnected) groups: Psychic TV/Coil, Nurse With Wound and Current 93. Coil consisted of the late John Balance (formerly Geoff Rushton) and Peter 'Sleazy' Christopherson. N.W.W. was pretty much built around Stephen Stapleton, with help from various collaborators. Current 93 was much the same, except with David Tibet at the helm.
All of them started in the late 1970s/early 1980s, following the post-punk flourish in 1977 and 1978. While they themselves had little to do with back-to-basics rock, they found the D.I.Y. spirit liberating. Stapleton himself was a devotee of left-field groups, especially German progressive music. They also shared interest in the occult, particularly the writings of Aleister Crowley, Austin Osman Spare and John Dee and Edward Kelly. Balance and Christopherson were also gay and brought their sexuality into their music as well.
Keenan, a (former?) writer for UK underground/obscure music magazine The Wire, chronicles the development of both the happenings and records of the three groups - starting with their childhoods. Tibet's seems the most exotic, being born in Malaysia to English parents and returning to England at about age 11. He romanticises England as he felt like an outsider for most of his life. Stapleton was an obsessive record collector who journeyed to Germany to meet some of his musical heroes, before finally recruiting a couple of friends to make a noise album. Christopherson was part of the Hipgnosis art collective, but after meeting Cosey Fanni Tutti and Genesis P-Orridge - formed proto-Industrial group Throbbing Gristle. Balance was a fan of T.G. and other noise bands and met up with Sleazy, eventually becoming his partner in music and life.
There's loads of detail and eyewitness accounts given for time in the studio and early live gigs by the main players (supplemented with like-minded cohorts: Drew McDowall, Rose McDowall, Stephen Thrower and Thighpaulsandra, etc.). Stapleton and Coil became mainly studio concerns after a couple of disastrous early shows (though Coil did perform live for a bit shortly before Balance's untimely death). I admit to finding the N.W.W. and Coil accounts more interesting than Current 93. Tibet seems to be too flighty and inclusive - swapping ideologies and tastes quite often. The Current 93 tracks I've listened to have a maudlin charm, but rarely does the actual music have any spark. He also kept some dubious company*, like Tony Wakeford (of neo-folk band Sol Invictus), Douglas Pearce (of Death In June), William Bennett (of 'power-electronic' noise merchants Whitehouse) and Boyd Rice. Keenan does his best to make most Current 93 releases sound like essential listening, but perhaps I'm missing something in the music.
In spite of that and Keenan's implied snobbery (he wrote for "The Wire", after all), it's a good account of an overlooked grouping of non-musicians and visual artists, who created their own niches and are still active now (with the exception of Coil) - the photo section at the end of the book provides a great bonus to the text.
*See the "Who Makes The Nazis?" blog for more information on the fascist leanings of D.I.J., Boyd Rice and Tony Wakeford
April 23, 2017
i've always been attracted to these musicians and learned years ago about this book, which was sadly oop at the time. listening to their music is surreal and often difficult, but like dub music the decade before, following them was like turning a transistor radio dial; there was always overlap, you'd start to notice features and voices and collaborations and could virtually map out a culture from the sound itself. actually being able to read about the culture firsthand (err, second) sometimes has that surreal/frightening duality in equipoise just as their music does, and its also been a real treat. i've always loved coil's music more than the other two, but i have to say reading about tibet's life and obsessions and worldview is by far the most fascinating; reading this definitely had me going into his back catalog, along with almost everyone here, even the smallest of players seemed to have a niche carved out somewhere, if you travel backwards enough, into the past.
this new edition has a new foreward and afterward, the former seeming a bit bitter (though i did laugh when he took godspeed down a few pegs, and rightfully so). oh, and it should be noted whitehouse always sucked, william bennett was always worthless and his place in the order of things is given far too much focus early on. a small detraction, everything else here is gold to me. the writing is exceptional and very respectful to all involved, the pictures are worth the price of admission alone, the quotes that accompany the frontispiece to each chapter are insightful, it answers most questions i could have for any of these guys (though i did want to know a bit more about time machines, and if balance ever had the vocal coaching the rumors said he had) and its absolutely leagues above anything else thats been written on the web. next to julian cope's books its the best music criticism i've read. i felt very melancholy when finishing it, like saying both hello and goodbye to an old friend.
this new edition has a new foreward and afterward, the former seeming a bit bitter (though i did laugh when he took godspeed down a few pegs, and rightfully so). oh, and it should be noted whitehouse always sucked, william bennett was always worthless and his place in the order of things is given far too much focus early on. a small detraction, everything else here is gold to me. the writing is exceptional and very respectful to all involved, the pictures are worth the price of admission alone, the quotes that accompany the frontispiece to each chapter are insightful, it answers most questions i could have for any of these guys (though i did want to know a bit more about time machines, and if balance ever had the vocal coaching the rumors said he had) and its absolutely leagues above anything else thats been written on the web. next to julian cope's books its the best music criticism i've read. i felt very melancholy when finishing it, like saying both hello and goodbye to an old friend.
February 10, 2024
I’m on the verge of calling “no clothes” on the Esoteric English Underground music scene. The scene dominated by bands such as Coil, Current 93 and Nurse With Wound has always intrigued me. Their albums are hard to find and even harder to listen to. The music defies description, more like sound collages, with Coil more on the electronic/industrial rhythm end of the scale, while Current 93 veers towards nightmarish nursery rhymes. Nurse with Wound makes noise that is as dark and twisted as their album covers. This is not accessible music, but I must admit I find its foreboding nature to be alluring, so I have invested time and money to gain a greater appreciation of it. England’s Hidden Reverse by David Keenan, is a recently reissued history of the movement and the pioneers behind the music Steve Stapleton (NWW), David Tibet (C93) and John Balance and Peter Christopherson (Coil). The scene is very insular, so they all contribute to each others albums (I was going to write “play” on each others albums, but I don’t think any of them can actually play an instrument). I wouldn’t say I was particularly impressed or enamoured with any of the characters - and I wouldn’t say I learned a lot about the philosophy or influences that underpin the music (although Stapleton was inspired by the German Krautrock scene that I so admire). There did seem to be a shared interest in Aleister Crowley, Austin Osman Spare, magick and the occult, and groups such as Psychic TV, Throbbing Gristle and Whitehouse, but I came away with contrasting thoughts - part why am I wasting my time with this talentless bunch; part what an arcane sub culture, what am I missing? With respected music magazines like the Wire name dropping these bands on a semi regular basis I’ll reluctantly continue my efforts to plow this lonely and potentially unrewarding furrow. I do like a challenge.
January 30, 2021
This book focuses on the intertwined triptych of the bands Coil, Current 93, and Nurse with Wound, and the musicians behind them, from their early days with Genesis P-Orridge with Throbbing Gristle/Psychic TV in London to their many exciting collaborations and innovations through time. I think the sections with David Tibet are the most exciting, but I'm a bit biased because I connect with his music the most on a personal level and he's a friend of mine. His apocalyptic visions and interests are endlessly fascinating, and I could literally listen to him all day. David Keenan feels this passion and enthusiasm too, and you can see it in his writing, which admires the artists but is also well-researched and detailed, offering a near graduate course cornucopia of source material and influences and characters that inform the music. But the sections with Coil and Stapleton are really intriguing too, particularly the exploration of queerness within Coil's music, as well as how Stephen Thrower influenced Clive Barker's vision of Hellraiser with his S&M collection (their unreleased themes for Hellraiser are excellent). It's a tragedy reading it in hindsight of John Balance's death, since we can see the chaotic impulses and self-destructiveness in some of his behaviour and music, and we know how it all ends. David and Stapleton have accomplished so much more since 2003, and I would be interested to read Part II, perhaps, which looks at more of their 21st century releases and achievements. But this is a great book, especially if you're fans of Current 93 or Coil or NWW. I admit that NWW was usually too disturbing for me in the past, but this book encouraged me to listen to more of his music (recommended starting point: Spiral Insana), and I'm glad I did.
February 26, 2018
What a bunch of freaks sprung up from the English underground in the late ’70s and early ‘80s. David Keenan shares the mysterious histories of Coil, Current 93 and Nurse With Wound, three different but similar experimental aural adventurers, not quite a collective but with more than nebulous ties, in ENGLAND’S HIDDEN REVERSE. It’s great to walk the pages with these secret creators who’s esoteric recordings always hinted at more than they revealed. Keenan shows the roots and the stems that grew to entangle odd corners of culture. It’s fun to hang out with these mystics, though sometimes their drug-fueled religious fetishism can get a bit portentous, it’s never short of entertaining.
May 21, 2018
Re-read, updated edition, 05/2018: This remains one of my favorite music books of all time. A rich, intimate portrait of three of the most important bands in my musical lexicon.
the only thing that could have improved this book is a detailed discography of the three bands covered. a fantastic study of three of my favorite bands.
the only thing that could have improved this book is a detailed discography of the three bands covered. a fantastic study of three of my favorite bands.
December 26, 2019
A fascinatingly thorough document but the writing isn't always great and it often moves off into tangents it doesn't need to. Makes an interesting coda to Simon Ford's "Wreckers of Civilisation: The Story of Coum Transmissions & Throbbing Gristle" and makes an interesting parallel read to Cosey Fanni Tutti's "Art Sex Music."
September 20, 2016
Bless their little hearts.
May 7, 2024
Good, but too much anecdote as opposed to analysis. Don’t need a blow-by-blow account of David Tibet’s life lol, feel that the “reverse” got lost amongst that
November 9, 2024
Finally got to read this! I got the revised kindle version this week after wanting to find a copy for years and years. I was too cheap when it came out originally (with the bonus CD). Honestly, I'm glad that I waited.
Growing up in rural Michigan, I discovered TG seconds after they broke up! Oops. I was about 16/17 and every form of new music was coming at me at the speed of light. A million new and old genres to explore! I got a xerox of the NWW list from a friend who had that album and that laid out a course for my musical explorations for the next 20 years.
I had friends that were hugely into this scene in high school. I found TG to be very interesting, PTV started out okay, but got massively stupid by the end of the 80s: As a US fan, I could see the same stupid things going on that ultimately led to Sleazy and Geoff splitting. And then Coil seemed somehow completely different and singular, to which I fell into pretty hard.
By the late 80s, NWW was starting to make more and more sense to me as I was also learning tons from that list and listening to other avant-garde European/NY music as well.
Still, friends were heavily into C93, DiJ and all that jazz. Therefore, I would listen too. It was barely impressive, but sometimes some of it would stand out. I kinda liked Swastikas for Noddy when it came out, but cringed at Rice's appearance. He was already known by some of us as a nazi sympathizer at best.
I cringed at a lot of the imagery of DiJ and Sol Invictus. Lucky for me their music was so amateur that I could barely stand it and avoided it altogether. Oddly, my friends remained fans.
The weirdest thing was C93's Lucifer Over London 12 inch. It featured not only a fucking Groundhogs cover(!), but the incredible guitar stylings of Nick Soloman of the Bevis Frond. Pre-internet days here remember, but I dug around and found and fell hopelessly in love with the Bevis Frond. Nick turned up on a NWW album too! Tibet also appeared on my fav Frond album, Sprawl. So I owe this pretentious little music scene for that! (If anything, for Americans, this might help realize how utterly small the English scene can be. Nick seems of a completely different cloth than Tibet, but they clearly crossed paths enough to work together. In the States, it's so damned huge that this rarely happens here.)
The book seems very Tibet heavy, but alternates between him, Coil and Stapleton enough to keep me interested. The Tibet parts are really painfully pretentious. My gawd, this guy needs to get it together. He's got decent tastes at least! He's worked with Shirley Collins too! But having Pearce and Wakeford around is creepy as all get out. Oh, and that other guy Ian Read. Jeez, wtf is going on with this fucks? Tibet seems either completely idiotic or just terribly spineless and unable to manage himself away from such rather obvious nutters.
Even weirder, the author opens the new edition with a odd whitewashing (ugh, no pun intended) of Whitehouse and the nazi milieu that lingers around the "esoteric underground" in the book. Really, he pleads, they're not nazis!! Honest! Er, yeah.
Overall, if you're a fan of Coil or NWW, this is chock full of info on them. Nothing terribly new about Coil, as there's tons of interviews elsewhere that fills in the proper details, but the NWW might be more relevant. I like NWW, but wasn't half as rabid about them as I was Coil, so I never dug that deeply.
Really, it IS put together well. As a sort of anthropological look at this particular scene, it's a huge help. If you're curious about cultural anthropology, especially niche musical scenes like this, it's solid work. But, it really is just for the fans of this odd, esoteric and super fucking pretentious group of artists.
Growing up in rural Michigan, I discovered TG seconds after they broke up! Oops. I was about 16/17 and every form of new music was coming at me at the speed of light. A million new and old genres to explore! I got a xerox of the NWW list from a friend who had that album and that laid out a course for my musical explorations for the next 20 years.
I had friends that were hugely into this scene in high school. I found TG to be very interesting, PTV started out okay, but got massively stupid by the end of the 80s: As a US fan, I could see the same stupid things going on that ultimately led to Sleazy and Geoff splitting. And then Coil seemed somehow completely different and singular, to which I fell into pretty hard.
By the late 80s, NWW was starting to make more and more sense to me as I was also learning tons from that list and listening to other avant-garde European/NY music as well.
Still, friends were heavily into C93, DiJ and all that jazz. Therefore, I would listen too. It was barely impressive, but sometimes some of it would stand out. I kinda liked Swastikas for Noddy when it came out, but cringed at Rice's appearance. He was already known by some of us as a nazi sympathizer at best.
I cringed at a lot of the imagery of DiJ and Sol Invictus. Lucky for me their music was so amateur that I could barely stand it and avoided it altogether. Oddly, my friends remained fans.
The weirdest thing was C93's Lucifer Over London 12 inch. It featured not only a fucking Groundhogs cover(!), but the incredible guitar stylings of Nick Soloman of the Bevis Frond. Pre-internet days here remember, but I dug around and found and fell hopelessly in love with the Bevis Frond. Nick turned up on a NWW album too! Tibet also appeared on my fav Frond album, Sprawl. So I owe this pretentious little music scene for that! (If anything, for Americans, this might help realize how utterly small the English scene can be. Nick seems of a completely different cloth than Tibet, but they clearly crossed paths enough to work together. In the States, it's so damned huge that this rarely happens here.)
The book seems very Tibet heavy, but alternates between him, Coil and Stapleton enough to keep me interested. The Tibet parts are really painfully pretentious. My gawd, this guy needs to get it together. He's got decent tastes at least! He's worked with Shirley Collins too! But having Pearce and Wakeford around is creepy as all get out. Oh, and that other guy Ian Read. Jeez, wtf is going on with this fucks? Tibet seems either completely idiotic or just terribly spineless and unable to manage himself away from such rather obvious nutters.
Even weirder, the author opens the new edition with a odd whitewashing (ugh, no pun intended) of Whitehouse and the nazi milieu that lingers around the "esoteric underground" in the book. Really, he pleads, they're not nazis!! Honest! Er, yeah.
Overall, if you're a fan of Coil or NWW, this is chock full of info on them. Nothing terribly new about Coil, as there's tons of interviews elsewhere that fills in the proper details, but the NWW might be more relevant. I like NWW, but wasn't half as rabid about them as I was Coil, so I never dug that deeply.
Really, it IS put together well. As a sort of anthropological look at this particular scene, it's a huge help. If you're curious about cultural anthropology, especially niche musical scenes like this, it's solid work. But, it really is just for the fans of this odd, esoteric and super fucking pretentious group of artists.
Read
June 14, 2024Mostly, one reads music books through interest in the act/s they cover, whereas my main reason for being here was through the novels Keenan has written since - several of which focus on musicians of his own invention (or, as I suspect he'd say, channelling). Of the groups at the centre of this story, I do have an awed but tentative interest in Current 93, but I always forget what Nurse With Wound sound like as soon as they've stopped playing, and I mainly find Coil funny. Which, as it turns out, is absolutely fine, because there are stretches of this which read like a nightmare version of Spaced where all the characters are Brian. It even spends a while centred around a house in Tufnell Park! But whenever the scene's ambient fascination with Crowley, Manson and other lazy signifiers of edginess threatens to bore, you can always rely on David Tibet to mix things up by getting fixated on Noddy instead, or say how he nearly loves Crass but wishes they wouldn't swear so much. There are times when the reader is expected to care a little more than anyone sane should (which is to say, at all) about splits in the OTO, and even in a book where many of the cast are trying way too hard to be shocking, I could definitely have done with less about fucking Whitehouse; even if the guy isn't actually a Nazi, he's definitely in contention with Genesis P Orridge for the story's biggest dickhead, and that's saying something. But more often, Keenan knows the entertaining details to drop in (Balance getting in trouble at school for astral projecting with the son of Mr Banks from Mary Poppins!), and there are cameos for various acts I do like, from Strawberry Switchblade, the Virgin Prunes and Danielle Dax (turns out a guy I used to work with drummed for her!) to the more surprising likes of Ultrasound, David Devant and Björk. Besides, for all the grubbiness and posturing, there are glimmers of transcendence too, and it's hard not to enjoy a story where the role of embarrassingly fame-hungry sell-out is taken by bloody Foetus, an event called Equinox is staged on the solstice, and one disastrous gig is not unreasonably summed up thus by the cameraman: "you can't play what sounds like three wasps at maximum feedback while calling everyone in the room a cunt and expect polite applause."
Of course, tragedy is comedy plus time, and the chaos can't last forever. Some players make accommodation with the straight world, understandably losing patience with gigs where someone might throw a chair or start pissing on the front row simply because proceedings are feeling a tad staid. Others leave town, searching for new frontiers beyond London's gravity. Which works out better in some cases than others; even by the end of the original book it's clear that Balance is in a bad way, but the later afterword adds the unspeakably bleak image of a man who can't bring himself to stay clean because it's at odds with his image as a psychonaut, even though what he's actually doing is drinking himself to death in Weston-super-Mare while watching Ready Steady Cook. Still! Biographies always end badly, don't they; maybe it's best that nowadays Keenan tells us about bands whose stories only he knows, from whom we can look away at a more satisfactory moment - bands, too, where the myth need never be brought down to earth by actually hearing the fuckers (this being the main reason I decided against seeing the Memorial Device play). But if nothing else, my life will forever be a little richer simply for knowing that there was a German industrial band whose name translates as Moose Without A Sofa.
Of course, tragedy is comedy plus time, and the chaos can't last forever. Some players make accommodation with the straight world, understandably losing patience with gigs where someone might throw a chair or start pissing on the front row simply because proceedings are feeling a tad staid. Others leave town, searching for new frontiers beyond London's gravity. Which works out better in some cases than others; even by the end of the original book it's clear that Balance is in a bad way, but the later afterword adds the unspeakably bleak image of a man who can't bring himself to stay clean because it's at odds with his image as a psychonaut, even though what he's actually doing is drinking himself to death in Weston-super-Mare while watching Ready Steady Cook. Still! Biographies always end badly, don't they; maybe it's best that nowadays Keenan tells us about bands whose stories only he knows, from whom we can look away at a more satisfactory moment - bands, too, where the myth need never be brought down to earth by actually hearing the fuckers (this being the main reason I decided against seeing the Memorial Device play). But if nothing else, my life will forever be a little richer simply for knowing that there was a German industrial band whose name translates as Moose Without A Sofa.
February 3, 2018
Great account of an often overlooked 'scene' of experimental music. The music of Coil, Nurse With Wound and Current 93 in some ways couldn't be more different but in other ways they're all kindred spirits.
I liked how the book would go back and forth between the artists and it was definitely interesting to learn more about the origins of Nurse With Wound and just anything and everything Coil (as I wasn't that familiar before reading).
It takes a little while to get to the early 90's which is when the motors of all groups really started going and some sections are a little light on information and analysis for my personal liking (how more wasn't written on The Inmost Light trilogy is beyond me).
It's not an easy read simply because it can be pretty dark and depressing in terms of themes and just the personalities involved. Also I feel the book is slightly marred by the inclusion of a new preface and afterword, both read as if Keenan has grown bitter and hateful since the first edition which is a shame as I think the music that was released for all the groups since 2002 has been great and has seen some interesting evolutions. Guess we'll never see a 'part 2' which is a shame.
When all is said and done I really enjoyed this book, it's easy to follow, has lots of information, it's intense but also interesting and it made me want to delve deeper into all the artist's work.
I liked how the book would go back and forth between the artists and it was definitely interesting to learn more about the origins of Nurse With Wound and just anything and everything Coil (as I wasn't that familiar before reading).
It takes a little while to get to the early 90's which is when the motors of all groups really started going and some sections are a little light on information and analysis for my personal liking (how more wasn't written on The Inmost Light trilogy is beyond me).
It's not an easy read simply because it can be pretty dark and depressing in terms of themes and just the personalities involved. Also I feel the book is slightly marred by the inclusion of a new preface and afterword, both read as if Keenan has grown bitter and hateful since the first edition which is a shame as I think the music that was released for all the groups since 2002 has been great and has seen some interesting evolutions. Guess we'll never see a 'part 2' which is a shame.
When all is said and done I really enjoyed this book, it's easy to follow, has lots of information, it's intense but also interesting and it made me want to delve deeper into all the artist's work.
January 9, 2025
A book I wanted to read for years, looking in detail at the evolution of Coil, Nurse with Wound and Current 93. It's not an introduction and indeed often extremely dense with the minutiae of their lives so its definitely for fans. It's also so rooted in the time and place of late 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s England that I suspect if you didn't grow up in that period you'll need some sort of seperate guide to the culture and time to understand what's happening in the book.
It does a good job in trying to explain how and why their music came to be and if I read it in the 90's I'd have been really taken with it. Now at the age of 50 I look at it more skeptically wondering how much is rooted in hints of abuse and childhood trauma and neuro-divergency.
One odd omission is that the book seems oddly disinterested in the detail of the esoterica, noting the changes in their respective philosophies but little more. Perhaps that's a function of the timing and how they have dropped some of the trappings of their earlier stances and now seem almost embarrassed while still retaining a deeply individualistic perspective which drew me to the music and art in the first place.
It does a good job in trying to explain how and why their music came to be and if I read it in the 90's I'd have been really taken with it. Now at the age of 50 I look at it more skeptically wondering how much is rooted in hints of abuse and childhood trauma and neuro-divergency.
One odd omission is that the book seems oddly disinterested in the detail of the esoterica, noting the changes in their respective philosophies but little more. Perhaps that's a function of the timing and how they have dropped some of the trappings of their earlier stances and now seem almost embarrassed while still retaining a deeply individualistic perspective which drew me to the music and art in the first place.
March 28, 2024
I’m giving this book five out of five because it pulls together a substantial body of information that otherwise would be very hard to track down, and in that regard it performs a valuable labor. Also, it was quite well-organized and readable, and I left it with a much better knowledge of the industrial scene than I had before.
One issue (for me, at least), is that at times the book becomes a straight music biography, recounting recording sessions, performances and so on. I would have liked a little more analysis on the ideas—what you might even call the larger philosophies—of the principal figures. This is especially pertinent here because so many of the principal figures discussed seem to have approached music from very esoteric places, but, after reading it, I still don’t think I understand the connections very well. I should add that, when the book does address these issues, it is quite good.
One issue (for me, at least), is that at times the book becomes a straight music biography, recounting recording sessions, performances and so on. I would have liked a little more analysis on the ideas—what you might even call the larger philosophies—of the principal figures. This is especially pertinent here because so many of the principal figures discussed seem to have approached music from very esoteric places, but, after reading it, I still don’t think I understand the connections very well. I should add that, when the book does address these issues, it is quite good.
September 18, 2023
Very good book if you are a fan of Nurse With Wound, Coil and Current 93. I did find the glossing over of some of the players who engaged in more than just dalliances with the White Power movement (Douglas Pearce and Boyd Rice just two examples) as they are known to have actually been a part of some of these organizations, rather than simply using fascist iconography for shock or artistic value. The author actually goes out of his way to excuse this behavior, comparing the use of fascist symbols in punk music, but claiming that by not expounding upon the reason for using these symbols they have more artistic merit than punk. I think that is hogwash - I believe it was either expressly for shock value, and further, some of these artists were (and still are) bigots. Aside from all of that - I found the book to be very interesting.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 65 reviews