It’s been quiet here. For the first time in longer than I can remember, my summer wasn’t spent madly scrabbling round for ad hoc jobs and projects and I was able to spend some time with my family – and speaking of which, Layla and I have begun working on a new project called Hawthonn. It takes its inspiration from the landscape of Bassenthwaite, the final resting place for the earthly vessel that hosted Coil’s Jhonn Balance.
While the legacy of Balance’s life, art and death could be called the daemon that is guiding the project, we are keen to stress that this is also very much informed by our own process of engagement with the imaginal landscape of Bassenthwaite and the complex of myth and image currently emerging from this; we hope that the final album will be an oblique (or, rather, ‘occult’?) tribute to a figure whose vision continues to haunt us. Since speaking to friends and acquaintances about this project, I have been humbled by their recollection of the kindness of both Balance and Christopherson during the early years of their project, before the volume of correspondence became impossible to deal with. An example I hope that we will to be able to follow (on my own I am terrible at maintaining correspondence…).
