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  Autor: Dominik Tischleder
Unten folgender Text zum Gedenken an Jhonn Balance stammt von WILLIAM (Bill) BREEZE, der als virtuoser Violinist auch auf einigen COIL, CURRENT 93 und PSYCHIC TV/SPLINTER TEST Tonträgern zu hören ist. In einem "zweiten Leben" ist Breeze als "Hymenaeus Beta" gegenwärtig Vorsitzender des alterwürdigen Ordo Templo Orientis, kurz O.T.O. genannt. Es sei noch erwähnt, daß Breeze in jungen Jahren mit zwei hochinteressanten Künstlern arbeitete. Zum Einen mit ANGUS MACLISE, dem ersten Schlagzeuger der VELVET UNDERGROUND, der - so die Legende - aus der Band ausstieg, als er mitbekam, daß seine Mitmusiker für einen Auftritt Geld als Gage annahmen. Später sollte er wunderschöne, mystische Drones in Anlehnung an die Fluxus und Minimal Musik Bewegung kreieren (Tipp!). Breeze lernte auch bei HARRY SMITH, einem Beatnik- Poeten, O.T.O. Bischof und experimentellen Filmemacher (nicht nur in der Hinsicht Mentor KENNETH ANGERS), ohne dessen Sammlung an alten Folkstücken, zusammengefasst in der "Anthology Of American Folkmusic" es kein US- Folk Revival mit Namen wie Joan Baez, Bob Dylan und Co möglich gewesen wäre. Der große ethnologische Musikverlag Smithsonian Folkways geht auf ihn zurück. -- IN MEMORIAM. Jhonn Balance IN MEMORIAM. Jhonn Balance (aka John Balance and Geff Rushton) died at home on November 13 in a fall, leaving the music world and the wider world of magick without one of its most gifted and vivid voices. He was born Geoffrey Laurence Burton on 16th February 1962 in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, later adopting the Rushton surname of his stepfather, and was educated at Lord Willliams School. He studied voice and vocal technique with Saral Bohm, wife of the physicist David Bohm. He was a member of 23 Skidoo, Psychic TV, Zos Kia, and Current 93, and in 1983 founded Coil with Throbbing Gristle cofounder Peter Christopherson. They embarked together on one of the most enduring and fruitful art/life partnerships in music. Balance was a natural occultist from youth -- he has left amusing accounts of his intensive astral experiences while still a public schoolboy. He became a serious student of all occult literature, and drew on this in his music, artfully fusing esoterics with a succession of musical forms and styles over more than two decades. The imagery and symbolism of his lyrics were however entirely his own -- he never resorted to plundering the symbolic language of others, though he enjoyed occasional veiled references. His output is all the more rich for his originality, making him a primary source in his own right, with passionate fans among occultists and pagans of all persuasions. His vocal technique was relentlessly experimental -- where many singers settle on a signature style and vocal range, he continually pushed the limits of expression to find fresh outlets for his visions. The output of Coil ranges from the avant-garde (including soundtracks for experimental filmmaker Derek Jarman), to acerbic reflections of passing trends in popular music (such as the brilliantly sardonic Love¹s Secret Domain album), to experimental neoclassical and folk (as with the Solstice/Equinox series), to extended excursions into pure electronica (like the recent Musick to Play in the Dark albums). Many bands and composers have cited Coil as an influence. Balance frequently collaborated with others, as guest artist, remixer and producer. Commissioned work by Coil includes a soundtrack for Clive Barker¹s Hellraiser (rejected by the studio as too frightening), and important remixes of Nine Inch Nails (see the title sequence music for the film Seven, and the album Further Down the Spiral). After an initial appearance in Berlin in 1983, Coil was a studio group until they premiered a sophisticated live show at London¹s Royal Festival Hall in 2000, commencing a highly successful series of tours that tested and proved Balance¹s abilities as a performer. Balance was a gifted writer whose work remains to be collected and published. A connoisseur of all things strange and beautiful, over the years he and Peter Christopherson built the important Threshold House collection of Austin Osman Spare and Aleister Crowley artworks, often loaning paintings to shows. Balance struggled all his life with the twin diseases of depression and alcoholism -- the latter contributed to his accidental death -- but he drew on this pain as well as his great joy in living to produce art that was all the more true, immediate and poignantly relevant. An account of his life and work is David Keenan, England¹s Hidden Reverse: The Secret History of the Esoteric Underground (London: SAF Publishing, 2003). A man of immense talent, learning, charm and generosity, he is survived by his ex-partner and lifelong collaborator Peter Christopherson, and his partner, the artist Ian Johnstone.
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