by Rolf SemprebonOn this limited-edition CD, packaged in a pink C-shell with no other inserts, Coil is stripped down to just John Balance and Thighpaulsandra, with the addition of Dorothy Lewis, a retired opera singer and Thighpaulsandra's mother who adds some spoken word material written by Balance. Released on Mother's Day and dedicated to mothers everywhere, Queens of the Circulating Library represents a lighter, softer version of Coil. The single 50-minute track starts off with Lewis' voice speaking about the wonders of libraries, books, knowledge, and trees over some warm, ambient drones. Loops of her voice become electronically manipulated to add some weird textures to the drones, but even these fade out about a quarter of the way in, and the remainder of the disc drifts off in the shifting drones until it finally fades into silence at the end. The analog synths lend the piece a very organic sound that is quite similar to the early albums of Klaus Schulze and other kosmische music and less like Coil's previous work, ambient or otherwise. Though the music is very relaxed, there's enough variation, especially one moment in the middle where it gets tweaked out with what almost sounds like laser gun bursts, which keeps it from sinking into ambient wallpaper. Not your typical Coil album, but certainly an interesting release nonetheless.