Coil - The Gay Man's Guide To Safer Sex +2

  • This soundtrack to a 1992 instructional video is among the best music in Coil's vast catalog.
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  • Gay Man's Guide To Safer Sex is a 1992 educational film produced by the AIDS charity Terrence Higgins Trust. The idea was noble and nearly unprecedented: to speak to gay men about sexual health and HIV in a respectful way, teaching them how to have safer sex without demonizing sex or promiscuity. The film itself is striking and unusually steamy for an educational effort. Slang terms are used without hesitation, fetish play is encouraged and all kinds of safe sex acts are shown in graphic detail. Somewhere between pornography and public service announcement, it was an important movie that became one of the first concrete resources about effective HIV treatment when it was re-cut, with fewer sex scenes, in 1997. But maybe the most curious detail about Gay Men's Guide To Safer Sex is that it was soundtracked by Coil. Coil, at this point comprising John Balance and Peter Christopherson, were working at peak performance in 1992. They had just released their best album, 1991's Love's Secret Domain, which combined their love of the occult and gay subculture with a newfound taste for UK acid house and ambient techno. Around this time they also composed the music for Derek Jarman's Blue, which chronicled the director's decline into blindness and declining health from AIDS. But where Blue is tragic, Gay Man's Guide To Safer Sex is sensual, alluring, even hopeful. The music happens to be some of the best in Coil's vast catalogue. "Theme From Gay Men's Guide To Safer Sex" feels like a lost anthem. With its sinuous groove and damp textures, it's somewhere between New Age-y porn soundtrack and the kind of psychedelic dance music groups like Orbital and Primal Scream were releasing at the time. The vocal moans and tunneling bassline add a seedy undercurrent—this is Coil, after all—while the longer version has a striking Robert Johnson sample playing throughout that only heightens the drama. With Johnson's wailing voice and gorgeous synth melodies, "Theme From Gay Men's Guide To Safer Sex" predicts the sound of Moby's massive Play, the kind of slippery smooth downtempo house track that might have been a mainstream hit if it were released in a different context. The other songs have an even more lascivious mood, appropriate for scenes involving leather and restraints. "Exploding Frogs" is a slow, lurking groove that sounds like a recording from some smoky jazz club, complete with meandering saxophone. Another version, "Omlagus Garfungiloops," features a matronly voice asking, "Have you been exploding frogs again?" The bongo-driven "Nasa-Arab 2" is a shorter, looser version of an 11-minute live performance also reissued here. Both are trips down a rabbit hole of bobbing beats and far-away melodies. This music is mighty impressive on its own, but watching the film really completes it. There's something gut-wrenchingly emotional about Gay Men's Guide To Safer Sex, particularly for any gay kid who grew up under hectoring morality and judgmental sex education. This an early '90s film that presents gay sexuality as completely acceptable, even something to be celebrated, one that places monogamy, open relationships and anonymous sex on equal ground. Choosing Coil to soundtrack it was a canny move. The duo have long represented the dual forces of gay men's subculture, from its dark side (take their HIV-inspired cover of "Tainted Love") to its more beautiful aspects. Few of their compositions bottle this all up into one feeling like "Theme From Gay Men's Guide To Safer Sex," a life-affirming track that deserves anthem status. Even if its creators have passed away in the 27 years since its release, there's something poignant about this reissue arriving at a time when gay culture has entered the mainstream in many countries around the world. Its roots in the film remind us not only of how far we have to go, but also how far we've come.
  • Tracklist
      01. Alternative Theme From Gay Man's Guide To Safer Sex 02. Exploding Frogs 03. Nasa-Arab 2 04. Nasa-Arab 05. Omlagus Garfungiloops 06. Theme From Gay Man's Guide To Safer Sex
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