#atozchallenge #wis J is for The Jeweller

This Mortal Coil wasn't so much a supergroup as it was a collective, masterminded by 4AD Records honcho Ivo Watts-Russell. It was originally created to cover a medley of two Modern English songs, with a Tim Buckley cover as the b-side. The Buckley cover, sung beautifully by Cocteau Twins singer Elizabeth Fraser, ended up being a surprise favorite with fans, and so they quickly threw together a full album in 1984 called It'll End in Tears. The collective included musicians both on and off the 4AD label, from Howard Devoto to members of Cocteau Twins, Dead Can Dance, and even Modern English. The end result was a fascinating mix of gorgeous instrumentals and orignals, and covers done in unexpected and fascinating ways. It went over so well with the fans that they released two more albums under the TMC moniker, Filigree & Shadow (1986) and Blood (1991) before retiring the name. [Ivo did briefly revive the collective idea in 1998 with The Hope Blister, releasing the mini-LP ...smiles ok, but it was a much smaller affair.]

I first heard This Mortal Coil on 10 November 1986 at 1am. I know this detail, because this was the first night I started taping stuff from college radio, and I still have that tape. Here's the scene: it's Tuesday, a school night, and everyone else in the house has gone to bed. I'm the only one still awake, and I've got my headphones on and jacked into my small boombox, recording a good half hour of music from WMUA. Right at the 1am hour, the deejay quietly reads the station ID and plays the first few songs from side C of Filigree & Shadow...

...and something clicked in my head. This was the moment when I equated college radio, as well as the classic 4AD sound, with that of dark rooms, solitary listening, a completely different way of thinking, a place far away from the rest of the world...another world entirely. It was a perfect moment where the music, the setting and the ambience of it all fell into place. I'd been fascinated by college radio and the music they were playing for at least a few months by then, but that was the night when I knew there was no going back. It affected me as a writer-in-training as well...my listening habits changed, and with that, the things I wrote became much darker--my characters started exposing cracks in their psyches, and certain scenes became much more visceral. Suddenly, I'd realized I didn't have to hold back.

Filigree & Shadow was the first TMC album I bought, most likely within a few months after that night. I believe I picked it up at Al Bum's. I specifically bought the tape, since I know I'd be listening to it mainly on my headphones. It's a dark and gorgeous double album. It's a wonderful mix of somber covers (Pearls Before Swine's "The Jeweller", Judy Collins' "My Father", Gary Ogan and Bill Lamb's "I Want to Live", and Colourbox's "Tarantula"), experimental covers (a devastating version of Quicksilver Messenger Service's "Fire Brothers"), and even a little twitchy (covers of Colin Newman's "Alone" and Talking Heads' "Drugs"), with many ethereal segue instrumentals linking them all together. I listened to it primarily at night, for obvious reasons. Once I even listened to it at night while sitting by myself on Short Sands Beach in York, Maine during a family vacation, watching the waves roll in and the moon rise. It's still one of my favorite albums of the 80s.