Celebrating
its 35th anniversary today is Chris & Cosey's fourth studio album,
Technø Primitiv, released on January 24, 1986, by Rough Trade Records in
the UK, EU & Canada (and eventually Wax Trax in the US in 1990).
While
their previous LP, Love & Lust, had shown some movement towards a
more "pop" friendly, mainstream sound, Technø Primitiv firmly placed
itself on a footing clearly aiming for accessibility as opposed to the
extreme experimentalism and confrontational styles of earlier C&C
work or their prior incarnation as half of Throbbing Gristle. Technø
Primitiv made no bones about offering up catchy tunes and toe tapping
beats and it set the tone for their course throughout the next decade.
At least that was the case as far as material released under the Chris
& Cosey banner. They'd continue to maintain a foot in the
avant-garde via their alternate creative outlets such as Conspiracy
International.
Of the pop friendly C&C albums released
during this period, Technø Primitiv stands as my personal favorite, with
a solid set of compositions and the use of state of the art (for the
day) electronics. In fact, it was those cover photos of their gear
which tapped into my own techno-fetishes as I clocked more than one
piece of kit that I had in my own arsenal or at least had access to at
the time. Seeing and hearing things like the Roland TR-707 drum machine
in action when I had one sitting in my living room created an instant
empathy with the album and it influenced more than a few of my own
compositions at the time. And, while some of those sounds may show a
bit of their age when I listen to it now, the album always brings back
special memories of that time and the creative energy it encapsulated.
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