Time Machines is a 1998 studio album by English experimental group Coil, originally released under the one-off project alias Time Machines. The album was created under the premise of psychedelic drone pieces named after corresponding hallucinogenic drugs, "tested and retested" during the album's studio sessions for apparent narcotic potency.

Background and composition

Time Machines is composed of four electronic drone pieces created with modular synthesizers, which as hinted at in their track names are an attempt to recreate the effects of telepathine, DOET, 5-MeO-DMT and psilocybin mushrooms. John Balance intended the album to cause "temporal slips": he commented that the musical effect was demonstrated when the group "listened to it loud [and] lost track of time". However, the group later tended towards regarding Time Machines a part of the Coil catalog; but never developed. A two-disc version was announced in January 2006 as a future release, but this was never expanded on either, although an album by Peter Christopherson, called Time Machines II, was released posthumously. In retrospect, Drew McDowall has remarked that "[p]eople tell me how much of an impact it had on them – which is always pretty surprising."

In 2018, surviving member Drew McDowall collaborated with British visual artist Florence To to perform an updated audio-visual version of the entire album in selected venues and festivals around the world.

Reception

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Sean Cooper of AllMusic gave the album four out of five stars and described it as "[e]njoyable, if a mite limited in scope."

Track listing

Personnel

According to AllMusic:

  • Peter Christopherson – performer
  • John Balance – performer
  • Drew McDowall – performer

References

  • Time Machines at Brainwashed
  • Time Machines website
  • stickers: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
  • "Persistence Is All" badge

See also

  • Harmine
  • DOET/hecate
  • 5-MeO-DMT
  • Psilocybin