CHRIS & COSEY - SONGS OF LOVE & LUST @ 40

Celebrating its 40th anniversary this month is the album that turned a couple of "wreckers of civilization" into pop stars, as Chris & Cosey's Songs of Love & Lust hit the record shops in January of 1984.

As members of COUM Transmissions and Throbbing Gristle, Chris Carter and Cosey Fanni Tutti had created reputations for themselves as controversial outsiders and provocateurs, pushing the boundaries of what was acceptable as both music and art. However, after the release of their confection of a single, October Love Song, late in 1983, they set their sights on creating a kind of music that was seemingly more conventional than anything they'd done previously. Their move in this direction began with their first two albums, Heartbeat, and to a lesser extent, Trance, which had a much more experimental vibe, but Songs of Love & Lust was purposefully and unapologetically striving towards accessible pop music, with intelligible, up front lyrics and melodic hooks that could linger in one's memory of the song, long after it was finished playing. For hardcore "industrial" music fans, this may have come as something of a disappointment, but for those willing to indulge the duo, their flirtations with mainstream song-craft opened up some wondrous possibilities.

This album was my introduction to Chris & Cosey, post TG. I'd only really dabbled in TG prior to this album's release, and didn't know of the existence of Psychic TV or Coil at all. As such, it functioned as a gateway drug into that world, offering infectious hooks and grooving rhythms I could relate to quite easily, where TG had seemed mostly impenetrable. That would all change soon enough, however, as the rest of 1984 would find me backtracking through Throbbing Gristle's catalogue, as well as Chris & Cosey's earlier releases, and eventually discovering PTV and Coil, until I was immersing myself in their entire oeuvre of sonic mayhem. But this was the album that truly piqued my curiosity and stuck with me, continuing to offer up its delights all these decades later. There are still songs on this album that I consider some of their all time best works.

 

Marking its tenth anniversary today is the final Throbbing Gristle product to emerge from their post-millennial reunion era (2002-2010), Desertshore | The Final Report, which was released on November 25th, 2012. Though Genesis P-Orridge had left the group before completing the project and Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson died shortly after Gen’s departure, it is, effectively, the capstone to TG’s recorded output, albeit under the “X-TG” imprint.

The origin of Desertshore began with Sleazy in 2007. Several members of the group were fans of Nico, but he came up with the concept of creating a complete cover of her 1970 solo album of the same name. The notion of TG covering an entire album was novel enough, but the group also came up with the idea of doing a three day installation residency at the ICA gallery in London. Here, they would set up a mobile recording studio and hold multiple sessions each day with a small audience in attendance, observing the group creating the album. There would be two hour sessions, twice each day (afternoon & evening) over three days. Each session was recorded in its entirety via a binaural live digital recording system and the results were then issued in a 12 CD-R bespoke wallet duplicated in a limited edition of a few hundred copies. The recordings captured mostly group chatter, vocal takes from Genesis and a number of instrumental improvisations from the group. Some of the non-Nico related original “jams” ended up becoming The Third Mind Movements CD, which was released in 2009 to help promote TG’s US tour.

After the ICA installation, Sleazy took the recordings and began doing various experiments, including bringing in new, exotic electronic instruments. The bulk of the work was being overseen by him until TG were about to do a small tour of Europe at the end of 2010. However, after the first London Gig, Gen abruptly packed off back to NYC, cryptically stating S/he’d no longer be performing, but was still “a member of TG”. The remaining trio were left holding the bag for commitments for the remainder of the tour, which they managed to salvage by hastily regrouping as "X-TG". During this time, they briefly decamped to Chris & Cosey’s Norfolk studio and recorded a number of jam sessions. These would form the basis of The Final Report, included in the eventual release. Sadly, however, after completing two X-TG gigs, Sleazy returned to his home in Thailand where he suddenly died before the end of the year.

The fate of the Desertshore project was uncertain at that point. All the materials and gear Sleazy was using for the project were eventually shipped to Chris & Cosey’s Norfolk studio, but Chris had very little understanding of the strange tools Sleazy was dabbling with, nor a clear understanding of his intent. The vocals which Gen had recorded in 2007 at the ICA were deemed unusable at some point after He/r departure and the relationship with Gen was no longer amenable to recording new vocals. Thus, the concept came about to have a selection of guest vocalists come in to contribute to the project. These included people like Anthony Hegarty, Blixa Bargeld, Sasha Grey, Marc Almond and Cosey. Chris & Cosey made every effort to try to realize the project as close to what Sleazy had imagined as they were capable of doing, and before the end of 2012, they’d finally managed to put together a finished production.

Along with the Desertshore album and the jams with Sleazy, The Final Report, a third ambient remixed version of Desertshore was created by Chris and included as a bonus CD in limited editions for friends. This was eventually made available as a digital download, แฝดนรก (Faet Narok). The album was released on CD, vinyl and digital media, with physical media elegantly packaged in special embossed white & grey covers with an integrated booklet included.

Musically, the album not only pays a loving tribute to Nico’s original work, it also stands as a tribute to TG itself as that entity completed its final task. It’s a rich tapestry of atmospherics and textures, all tied together with the kind of attention to detail which had become typical for the surviving duo’s work. The Final Report offers up a tantalizing glimpse of what might have been possible if the X-TG trio had continued to work together and perform. It was somehow liberated without the internal conflicts which had underpinned their relationship with Gen before He/r departure. Yet there’s a melancholy to it as well given that failure to hold the group together long enough to complete the project with all four members still involved. Ultimately, it is an expansive and substantive monument to everything TG was capable of creating.

CHRIS & COSEY - TRANCE @ 40

 

Marking its 40th anniversary this month is the second studio album from former TG founders Chris & Cosey, Trance, which was released in May of 1982.

Despite its title, “Trance” really has nothing to do with the electronic musical genre which would emerge nearly a decade later in the rave scenes of the UK and Europe. That’s not to say that the duo didn’t create music at this time which was a direct precursor to that style. The track, Dancing Ghosts, from the Elemental 7 soundtrack is indeed an ancestor and inspiration, but this album itself, while ahead of its time for electronic music, veers into other far more exotic territory.

Unlike the group’s debut, this album is nearly all instrumental with vocals only appearing on the track, Secret, and then only as atmospherics. It was designed to function as “mood” music, or a kind of bizarre “easy listening”, though Cosey’s searing guitar flailing on Re-Education Through Labor makes for some challenging meditations. Overall, it tends to exist in an odd netherworld between “ambient” and more rhythmic grooves. While the prior album, Heartbeat, occasionally brushed against "pop-song" conventions, Trance keeps clear of them, striving to remain true to it’s atmospheric ambitions and succeeding consistently throughout.

The front cover of the album offers up a portrait of the couple framed by the ancient Roman gates of London in the background. The location lends a sense of timelessness to the album and reinforces its ability to transcend temporal constraints. Indeed, as it has aged, its foresight and innovation have enabled it to continue to sound futuristic and alien, even after four decades of musical and technological advancement. There’s simply nothing about this LP that sounds dated or of its time. Most of humanity still hasn’t managed to arrive at the fantastical world which emanates from these recordings. Personally, it has always been and remains one of their most beloved releases in their canon.

CHRIS & COSEY - HEARTBEAT @ 40

 

40 years ago this month, in November of 1981, Chris & Cosey officially stepped out of the Throbbing Gristle shadows and began their career as the dynamic duo of electronic music.

It wasn't long after Chris Carter joined Genesis P-Orridge, Cosey Fanni Tutti & Peter Christopherson to form Throbbing Gristle that sparks began to fly between him and his future life and creative partner. By the time TG began to spiral down towards their termination, Chris & Cosey had already started working on material that would end up on their first post TG album. Heartbeat would come as a celebration of their new freedom and the beginning of their life together as they became a family with the addition of their soon to be born child, pictured in an ultrasound on the cover and commemorated by the title. It's an album about birth and new life and is bursting with a sense of liberation, enthusiasm and optimism about facing the future. While it still hints at some of the darkness that was the hallmark of TG, there's much more of a sense of beauty and wonder about it all as they were in the flush of their romance and finally being able to live openly and create freely within their own domain. Signing to Rough Trade records, the duo were able to focus on the music without having to deal with the administrative issues of running an independent label, though they'd eventually get back to doing that soon enough.

For me, Heartbeat is a critical release within the arena of electronic music as it offers clear signposts towards styles and approaches which would become foundational for the future of the genre, particularly as the 80s ran out the clock in its final years. What makes this album so important is that it was so far ahead of the curve and ended up becoming a touchstone years later as producers inspired by the first waves of the techno & acid house movements began to look for ideas as to where to take that music as they strove to innovate and evolve. Many people quickly began to realize that Chris & Cosey had already plotted out the paths of where to go, nearly a full decade beforehand. As such, the album has retained a certain vitality and timelessness as it was so effective in opening the floodgates for the potential of electronic music for generations to come.

CHRIS & COSEY - TECHNO PRIMITIV @ 35

 

 

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.

INFLUENTIAL ALBUM - FUTURE SOUND OF LONDON, LIFEFORMS

In 1994, Future Sound of London (FSOL) released their sprawling double CD opus, Lifeforms. At the time I first heard it, I thought that I'd never heard FSOL before, however, I would later discover that they'd cracked my sphere of perception as far back as 1988 with the Stakker Humanoid single, released under the Humanoid alias.

Coming from the UK Acid House explosion of the late 1980s, Brian Dougans & Garry Cobain were on the forefront of pushing electronic music into the far reaches of deep space experimentation. Along with the likes of Autechre, they had their sights set far beyond the familiar balm of 4x4 dance grooves. With Lifeforms, FSOL cast off from those shores and set the course of their synthesizer spaceship off into the nebulous galaxies of the sweepingly ethereal.

Lifeforms took electronic music well away from the rigidity of fixed beats into something much more organic. Like the title suggests, these sonic creatures are alive and amorphous, another term they'd put to use with another alias. There's nothing static or rigid about these sounds. They all seem to grow and twist like exotic flora & fauna. Songs don't start and stop, they emerge from the jungle and then slink back into the murk after having weaved their spell. Everything from start to finish hangs together as a single, expansive landscape, populated by any number of strange beasts. It's an album that fully exploits the capacity of the medium of the day, the CD. I know the vinyl purists out there may scoff at this, but this really is an album properly enjoyed on compact disc, mostly because you don't want to have to keep getting up every 20 minutes to flip sides. You want to sink into this environment and soak in it, undisturbed.

Though it wasn't always explicitly apparent, there was always a connection between the UK Acid House movement and the preceding experimental, "Industrial" scene. The fact that Psychic TV were one of the premier early adopters of the Acid House genre should be enough of a clue, but FSOL sort of took the flow of influence back to complete the circle with this album, pulling in Industrial's more dark ambient aspects and often directly sampling sources such as Throbbing Gristle and Chris & Cosey. This album is a vital link in that chain.

Lifeforms also makes the psychedelic facets of the electronic music of the day most fully realized, doing more than paying lip service to the experience by virtue of the graphics and design aesthetics. This really is music for serious tripping, well off the grid of the dance floor. Dougans' & Cobain's commitment to this culture would become much more explicit in later years as they dove headlong into full on psychedelic "acid-rock", sometimes to the dismay of fans more committed to electronic music.

In the long run, Lifeforms still stands up to serious listening to this day, sounding just as alive and organic as it did the day it was released.