Horse Rotorvator

Horse Rotorvator
Horse Rotorvator
	original LP cover
Studio album by Coil
Released	1986
Genre	Post-industrial; psychedelia; industrial; avant-garde pop;
Length	49:15 (Some Bizzare CD version)
Label	Some Bizzare; Force & Form; Threshold House;
Producer	Coil
Coil chronology

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	^[2]
Encyclopedia of Popular Music	^[5]
Pitchfork	9.5/10^[4]

Horse Rotorvator is the second studio album by English experimental music group Coil, released in 1986.

The album was ranked No. 73 in the Pitchfork list "Top 100 Albums of the 1980s".^[6]

Background

The album title was inspired by a dream of Balance's in which the Four 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 in Regent's Park, London, which was subject to the Hyde Park and Regent's Park bombings four years before the album's release.

A cover of Leonard Cohen's "Who by Fire" is featured on the album. "Ostia" meditates on the murder of radical Italian filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini.^[2] Guests include Marc Almond and his collaborator Billy McGee.^[2]

Release

Horse Rotorvator was initially released in the UK in 1986 by Force & Form and was manufactured by K.422, a Some Bizzare Records side label. In the USA, the album was released by Relativity Records. The album was first reissued on CD in 1988.^[7]^[8]

Reception

AllMusic called the album a "refinement of brute noise and creepily serene arrangements into a truly modern psychedelia, from tribal drumming and death march guitars to disturbing samples and marching 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]

Track listing

All lyrics are written by John Balance; all music is composed by John Balance and Peter Christopherson; except where noted

*Horse Rotorvator* track listing
No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
1.	"The Anal Staircase"		4:00
2.	"Slur"		3:31
3.	"Babylero"		0:52
4.	"Ostia (The Death of Pasolini)"		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

Cassette bonus track
No.	Title	Length
13.	"The Anal Staircase" (A Dionysian remix)	5:53

Notes

LP pressings of the album omit "Ravenous". On some of the CD pressings, it is the twelfth track instead of the seventh one. Sometimes the track listing on the packaging and the actual order differ as a result (for example, one ROTA 1 pressing lists the tracks in the above order, but when played, "Ravenous" is a twelfth track).
On cassette pressings of the album, "Slur" and "Herald" are titled as "Silk" and "Acapulco March", respectively.

Charts

Chart performance for *Horse Rotorvator*
Chart (1987)	Peak position
UK Indie Chart^[9]^[10]	3

References

^ Jansen, Skip. "Coil - Musick to Play in the Dark". AllMusic. Retrieved 29 November 2018.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Raggett, Ned. "Horse Rotorvator – Coil". AllMusic. Retrieved 2 April 2018.
^ Diamond, Jason. "A Thinking Person's Guide to Industrial Music". Flavorwire. Retrieved 5 May 2021.
^ ^a ^b Felsenthal, Daniel (4 June 2023). "Coil: Horse Rotorvator Album Review". Pitchfork. Retrieved 4 June 2023.
^ Larkin, Colin, ed. (1998). "Coil". Encyclopedia of Popular Music. Vol. 2 (3rd ed.). London, New York: Muze, Grove's Dictionaries. pp. 1155–1156. ISBN 1-56159-237-4. LCCN 98-37439. OCLC 1033565487 – via the Internet Archive.
^ ^a ^b ^c "Staff Lists: Top 100 Albums of the 1980s | Features". Pitchfork. 20 November 2002. Archived from the original on 1 January 2010. Retrieved 22 February 2012.
^ "Coil - Horse Rotorvator". Discogs. Retrieved 30 April 2020.
^ "Force & Form". Discogs. Retrieved 30 April 2020.
^ Lazell, Barry (1997). Indie Hits 1980-1989. Cherry Red Books. Archived from the original on 15 February 2009. Retrieved 13 July 2022.
^ Thompson, Dave (2002). Alternative Rock. San Francisco, CA: Miller Freeman. p. 279. ISBN 0-87930-607-6. LCCN 00-58249. OCLC 1193377576 – via the Internet Archive.