| The Ape of Naples | |
| Type: | Studio |
| Artist: | Coil |
| Cover: | THRESH2.jpg |
| Recorded: | 1993–2005 |
| Length: | 65:36 |
| Label: | Threshold House |
| Producer: | Coil |
| Prev Title: | ...And the Ambulance Died in His Arms |
| Prev Year: | 2005 |
| Next Title: | The New Backwards |
| Next Year: | 2008 |
The Ape of Naples is the final studio album by English experimental group Coil. It was released on 2 December 2005 in the UK and Thailand by Threshold House, and has subsequently been reissued by multiple labels. Produced by Peter Christopherson following the death of bandmate John Balance in 2004, it contains reworked and remixed material from 1993 to 2004. The album was dedicated to Balance's memory.[1]
The Ape of Naples is composed of reworked material that Coil had created in varying forms since the inception of Backwards, their aborted Nothing Records album created during a period that Christopherson dubbed "the New Orleans era",[2] as well as songs that were previously only played live in improvisational form on the mini-tours Coil undertook in the early 2000s. The title of the album was originally intended to be Fire of the Mind, which then became the title of the first track. "The Last Amethyst Deceiver" is the "final version" of "Amethyst Deceivers", a track released on in 1998 and in various versions afterwards; "It's In My Blood" was performed under the original name of "A.Y.O.R."; and "Going Up", the last song on the album, samples Balance's voice from Coil's final performance at the Dublin Electronic Arts Festival in 2004: Christopherson remarked that Coil's performance of "Going Up" at the festival was "the one and only time John thought of and sang those words...his own epitaph if you like."
Christopherson created the album with awareness of his own grief after Balance's death at their home in Weston-super-Mare on 13 November 2004; with the material he reworked taking on new meanings that he saw throughout the album's production, he felt he didn't "think [he] could have done it any better, so in that sense [he felt] fulfilled, and [was] sure John would feel so, too."
Songs from the New Orleans era which HAD not seemed to have "found their time" suddenly took on a completely new aspect, because of John's death. Miraculously, they changed, morphed, in front of my eyes, and I had numerous "oh my god—THAT's what that's about" revelatory moments. I imagine everyone does, listening to the album knowing what happened, in a way.