John Balance
Sound
Biography
Geoffrey Nigel Laurence Rushton (16 February 1962 – 13 November 2004), better known under the pseudonyms John Balance or the later variation Jhonn Balance, was an English musician, occultist, artist and poet. He was best known as a co-founder of the experimental music group Coil, in collaboration with his partner Peter "Sleazy" Christopherson. Coil was active from 1982 to Balance's death in 2004. He was responsible for the majority of Coil's vocals, lyrics and chants, along with synthesizers and various other instruments both commonplace and esoteric. Outside Coil he collaborated with Cultural Amnesia (at the beginning of the 1980s), Nurse with Wound, Death in June, Psychic TV, Current 93, Chris & Cosey, Thighpaulsandra, and produced several Nine Inch Nails remixes.
Known For
A first person narrative of the exploits of a gay serial killer in deeply disturbing, controversial drama about violence, sexuality, and the imagination. Dennis, the main character, whose lead we follow on this path between what is real and what we can only hope is surreal. His friends attempt to determine if he's truly a psychopath.
Frisk
Against a plain, unchanging blue screen, a densely interwoven soundtrack of voices, sound effects and music attempt to convey a portrait of Derek Jarman's experiences with AIDS, both literally and allegorically, together with an exploration of the meanings associated with the colour blue.
Blue
Documentary featuring Peter Christopherson discussing his histories with Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV, and Coil - the much missed groundbreaking band he would form with his lover Jhon Balance and develop over decades. Coil came to its end with the tragic and futile November 2004 death of Balance, a death that Peter and many others had feared was coming.
Coil, the death of Jhon Balance
The Angelic Conversation is a lyrical, haunting film about a young man’s search for love in a dreamlike landscape. Its tone is set by the juxtaposition of slow moving homo-erotic images and opaque landscapes through which two men take a journey into their own desires. Offscreen, Dame Judi Dench recites a sequence of Shakespeare's sonnets that counterpoint the action. Jarman called it, “My most austere work, but also the closest to my heart.”
The Angelic Conversation
Instructional documentary produced in association with the Terrence Higgins Trust.
The Gay Man's Guide to Safer Sex
This documentary shows the mindset of the some of the most original and influential artists of the experimental scene (Coil, Current 93, Foetus, Test Dept.). An unprecedented insight into the workings, the methods and the ideas that made these names legendary. Filmed in Hamburg, Amsterdam and London, 1985-1987.
The Sound of Progress
Founders of Coil, a cult entity of experimental industrial British music, Peter Christopherson and John Balance also directed films from 1970 to 1980, exhumed and restored by Timeless. Shot on 8 and 16mm film, these unclassifiable subversive marvels, unsettling and trippy, garbed in gay masochist aesthetics, are as much family films, performances, body horror and urban nightmares. They're above all characterized by a tormented imagination under the sign of Eros and Thanatos with an irrepressible taste for death. There was an empty space next to Antony Balch, Derek Jarman and Jean Genet : it's no longer vacant. Maxime Lachaud and Reivaks Timeless deliver a unique document, haunted by the duo’s music, with this one way journey into limbo, where they’re joined by the recently deceased Monte Cazazza, a founding father of the concept of industrial music.
A Way to Die: The Films of Peter Christopherson and John Balance
From pushy bottoms to macho femmes, Bloodsisters is an A–Z documentary guide that takes an in-depth look at the San Francisco Leatherdyke scene during the mid-nineties.
BloodSisters: Leather, Dykes, and Sadomasochism
Coil's very final live appearance at the 2004 Dublin Electronic Arts Festival held in the Dublin City Hall.
Coil: Dublin 2004
16 DVD boxset by Threshold House, containing video registrations of the following Coil performances: Air Gallery, London, 24-08-1983 SONAR, Barcelona, 17-06-2000 Convergence, New York, 18-08-2001 DK Gorbunova, Moscow, 15-09-2001 Teatro Delle Celebraziani, Bologna, 06-04-2002 New Forms, Den Haag, 07-06-2002 Vagonka, Konigsberg, 29-09-2002 Ydrogeios, Thessaloniki, 05-10-2002 Flex, Vienna (+ Prague), 29-10-2002 La Loco, Paris, 23-05-2004 Mutek, Montreal, 29-05-2003 Melkweg, Amsterdam, 03-06-2004 (Selvagina), Jesi, 11-06-2004 City Hall, Dublin, 23-10-2004 The Coil Reconstruction Kit (2 discs)
Coil: Colour Sound Oblivion
A professionally filmed and edited video of Coil's performance at DK Gorbunova in Moscow, Russia on September 15, 2001. This release was given to attendees at Coil's return to Moscow on September 26, 2002, and was also made available for sale. Setlist Something/Higher Beings Command Amethyst Deceivers 6:10 What Kind Of Animal Are You? 8:30 Blood From The Air 6:20 The Green Child 7:30 Constant Shallowness Leads To Evil 15:30
Coil: Live in Moscow 2001
Live in Paris
Coil: Paris 2004
Coil Live Prague 2002
Coil: Prague 2002
Documentation of ritual performance by Black Sun Productions featuring Jhonn Balance of Coil. Montage of Polaroid photos by Peter Christopherson taken at The North Tower, Weston-super-Mare on August 23, 2002 during "Plastic Spider Thing 11". Edited in 2008, USA.