It's hard to believe that it has been twenty-five years since This Mortal Coil shuffled onto this mortal coil, giving bedsit navel gazers a soundtrack for their silent seething, the goth crowd more atmosphere when applying eyeliner, and certain wise asses the opportunity to turn Tim Buckley's pretentiously awkward "touch me not, come back tomorrow" into the go-to phrase for dismissal. Hey, at least it wasn't "talk to the hand!"
"It'll End In Tears" gave those of us who cared a chance to hear The Cocteau Twins' Liz Frasier utter her first words and we all felt like proud parents and began to feel that there was hope for little Michael Stipe. Liz and Robin Guthrie took on "Song To The Siren" and made it their own, swathing it in filigree and shadow, and making dashed against the rocks heartbreak seem rather nice, thank you very much. For some, it's the definitive version and the perfect accompaniment for traveling on a "Lost Highway".
This Mortal Coil was the ultimate supergroup, a dressed in black Monkees, and a brilliantly diverse cover band that sneakily force fed a generation the esoteric treasures hidden in their parents record collection - jumpstarting (again) the catalog of Tim Buckley and Big Star when its more adventurous listeners began to read the writing credits. After the third album, "Blood", mastermind Ivor Watts-Russell promised that it would be the last and, for nineteen years, he's kept that promise. Meanwhile, kids like me keep finding ourselves occasionally lying on the floor in the dark, clutching our "limited edition" cd box to our chests having long ago traded in our vinyl copies, while realizing that those intermittent bouts of melancholy are normal after all and pondering the the new twist on worrying about our hair as vague traces of patchouli memories rise into the cloud of cigarette smoke above.
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