| Horse Rotorvator | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 original LP cover | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | 1986 | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 49:15 (Some Bizzare CD version) | |||
| Label |
| |||
| Producer | Coil | |||
| Coil chronology | ||||
| ||||
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |  [2] |
| Encyclopedia of Popular Music |  [5] |
| Pitchfork | 9.5/10[4] |
Horse Rotorvator is the second studio album by Englishexperimental music groupCoil, released in 1986.
The album was ranked No. 73 in thePitchfork list "Top 100 Albums of the 1980s".[6]
The album title was inspired by a dream of Balance's in which theFour Horsemen of the Apocalypse slit the throats of their horses and assembled their jawbones into a device large enough to "plough up the waiting world."[2][6] The cover photograph was shot by the band and shows the bandstand inRegent's Park,London, which was subject to theHyde Park and Regent's Park bombings four years before the album's release.
A cover ofLeonard Cohen's "Who by Fire" is featured on the album. "Ostia" meditates on the murder of radical Italian filmmakerPier Paolo Pasolini.[2] Guests includeMarc Almond and his collaborator Billy McGee.[2]
Horse Rotorvator was initially released in the UK in 1986 by Force & Form and was manufactured by K.422, aSome Bizzare Records side label. In the USA, the album was released byRelativity Records. The album was first reissued onCD in 1988.[7][8]
AllMusic called the album a "refinement of brute noise and creepily serene arrangements into a truly modernpsychedelia, from tribal drumming and death march guitars to disturbing samples andmarching band samples and back", crediting the group with "eschewing easy clichés on all fronts to create unnerving, never easily-digested invocations of musical power".Pitchfork named it among the best albums of the 1980s and stated that "the bulk of these songs are grand, sweeping treatments of themes of death and betrayal, wrought in a collage of noise and restless rhythms [...] Equally austere, humorous, and frightening,Horse Rotorvator stands as one of the more unique projects of its decade."[6]
All lyrics are written byJohn Balance; all music is composed by John Balance andPeter Christopherson; except where noted.
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "The Anal Staircase" | 4:00 | |
| 2. | "Slur" | 3:31 | |
| 3. | "Babylero" | 0:52 | |
| 4. | "Ostia (The Death ofPasolini)" | 6:20 | |
| 5. | "Herald" | 1:03 | |
| 6. | "Penetralia" | 6:11 | |
| 7. | "Ravenous" | 3:26 | |
| 8. | "Circles of Mania" | 5:01 | |
| 9. | "Blood from the Air" | 5:32 | |
| 10. | "Who by Fire" | Leonard Cohen | 2:37 |
| 11. | "The Golden Section" | 5:50 | |
| 12. | "The First Five Minutes After Death" | 4:45 |
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 13. | "The Anal Staircase" (A Dionysian remix) | 5:53 |
Notes
| Chart (1987) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| UK Indie Chart[9][10] | 3 |
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