Editing Time Machines (section)

==Background and composition==
''Time Machines'' is composed of four [[Electronic music|electronic]] [[Drone music|drone]] pieces created with modular synthesizers, which as hinted at in their track names are an attempt to recreate the chemically derived psychedelic and narcotic potency of [[Harmine|telepathine]], [[2,5-Dimethoxy-4-ethylamphetamine|DOET]], [[N,N-Dimethyltryptamine|DMT]] and [[psilocybin mushroom]]s (telepathine and DMT being primary components of [[ayahuasca]]). As well as this, Balance intended the album to cause "temporal slips": he commented that the musical effect was demonstrated when the group "listened to it loud [and] lost track of time".<ref name="thewire" /> [[Drew McDowall]] created the original demo for the record, at first inspired by what he saw as a hypnotic state created in [[Music of Tibet|Tibetan music]], but his final idea with Balance and Christopherson was to use filters and oscillators on the tones of the demo to induce trancelike effects.

In a 1998 interview, given to [[David Keenan]] for ''[[The Wire (magazine)|The Wire]]'' magazine, Balance explained the album's concept and intent, inspired by trancelike states:
<blockquote>
One of the interesting things with ''Time Machines'' is that there's a handful of responses which we've had where what happened to the listeners was exactly what we intended to happen. There would be some kind of temporal disruption caused by just listening to the music, just interacting with the music. The drugs thing is actually a hook we hung it on – it originally came out of me and Drew talking that some of the types of music you listen to – sacred musics like Tibetan music or anything with a sacred intent which often is long ceremonial type music which could last for a day or three days or something. There are periods of time in that where you will come out of time. That's the intention of it to go into a trance and achieve an otherness. We thought can we do this sort of electronic punk-primitive? We did demos with a simple mono synth and we managed it. We sat in the room and listened to it loud and we lost track of time – it could be five minutes in or 20 minutes in but you suddenly get this feeling, the hairs on the back of your neck, and you'd realise that you'd had some sort of temporal slip. We fine-tuned, well, filters and oscillators and stuff, to try and maximise this effect. It was that we were after with simple tones – somehow you could slip through.<ref name="thewire" />
</blockquote>

When ''Time Machines'' was first released, the group was initially very conscious that it should not be labeled as a Coil album due to how abstract and different it was compared to previous Coil albums.<ref name="Brainwashed">{{cite web|last=Strachan |first=Guy |url=http://www.brainwashed.com/common/htdocs/publications/coil-2003-terrorizer.php?site=coil08 |title=Coil, "Strangers In The Night" (Terrorizer #110, 2003) |publisher=Brainwashed.com |access-date=2012-03-12}}</ref> However, the group later tended towards regarding ''Time Machines'' a part of the Coil catalog;<ref name="Brainwashed" /> this led the 2000 follow-up live album ''[[Coil Presents Time Machines]]'' to be released as a Coil album.