THROBBING GRISTLE - 20 JAZZ FUNK GREATS @ 45

 

Celebrating its 45th anniversary today is the third LP from Throbbing Gristle, 20 Jazz Funk Greats, which was released by the band's own Industrial Records imprint on December 10th 1979. While it was the group's most accessible record to date, it has also become recognized as one of the most insidiously subversive albums to ever come from the genre that Industrial Records gave a name.

Up until the release of 20 Jazz Funk Greats, TG had made a name for themselves through a series of brain crushing live performances and a couple of unclassifiable LPs, which combined segments of recordings from their live performances along with studio concoctions created using the primitive facilities of their Death Factory studio, located in the basement level at 10 Martello St, in Hackney. Their debut LP, Second Annual Report, was a dirge of electronic lo-fi noise that oozed and sputtered with a queasy murk of fuzz, bass throb and incidental jabs of seemingly random chaos. With their follow up single, United, they dabbled in a bit of techno-pop, and their next album had a range of styles, from creepy to ambient to churning to flat out noise. Little of it was particularly accessible, challenging the patience and the auditory senses of listeners. So when it came time to do their next album, the group were eager to confound the expectations of their audience and critics, because TG were nothing if not consummate contrarians.

The initial inspiration for the album came about because of a visit by Genesis with his mum, who asked him why he didn't do a "nice" record for a change. The comment stuck and the idea was brought back to the band to do something more ordered and structured, less noisy and more like a "pop" record. Of course this idea didn't merely sit at that level, as the band then began to turn the concept over and explore ways to subvert the format. They took every aspect of every song into consideration, as well as ideas for packaging and design.

For recording, this would be the first fully studio produced LP by the band, since both the previous LPs and single had incorporated live performance recordings. Peter Christopherson, who was working as a partner in the Hipgnosis design firm, had been involved in a cover design for Paul McCartney prior to TG beginning work on their new LP. Through this connection Peter managed to secure the loan of a 16 track recording system from McCartney. This allowed the group to achieve a recording quality they'd never had before, giving the new album production values far beyond the primitive results of their earlier works. They'd also managed to acquire a lot of new gear from Roland and its subsidiary brand BOSS, including drum machines, synthesizers, effects units and amplifiers. With all this new kit in tow, they were assured a sound on the new album miles ahead of where they'd got to before.

Musically, the construction of the album was carefully discussed and debated in terms of what kinds of tracks to have in which position on the album. For example, they knew they needed something a bit light and rhythmic to kick off each side of the record, choosing pieces like the title track and Hot On the Heels of Love. From there, they ran the gamut of styles from the pastoral beauty of Beachy Head and Walkabout to the perverse pulse of Persuasion to the grinding churn of Convincing People and What A Day. Yet even with the intensity cranked up, the clarity was never sacrificed.

Of course the massive cherry for this album was the impeccably deceptive cover graphics. The front photo depicts the band, smartly dressed in summer casuals, smiling vacantly in a grassy green field peppered with wild flowers, next to a barely perceptible cliff. Because of the cloud cover on the day of the photo shoot, it's not entirely obvious that they're next to a cliff, let alone that it's Beachy Head, a location notorious as a suicide hot spot. In fact, Sleazy commented that it was incredibly difficult to get the shot to look like a nice day and not gloomy because of the weather. He had to do a lot of careful processing of the photo to lighten it up. The group also rented a Range Rover vehicle to get out to the shoot, and made sure to include it in the photo as a status symbol, being as they were all the rage for the wealthy at the time, giving the group a false appearance of affluence. The album's title was an ironic joke as there was virtually nothing jazzy or funky about the record, and there were only 11 tracks, not 20. The idea was that the record should look like some innocuous discount bin pop LP you'd find you your local department store, something someone's gran might pick up out of curiosity, only to put it on the phonograph at home and find something unexpected instead.

With the album's release, critics and fans were confused as to where TG were going and what they were aiming to achieve, though after the initial shock, both groups began to appreciate the subtleties of the record. As time passed, people noticed its prescience in terms of anticipating music like acid house techno with tracks like Hot On the Heels of Love, which was created as a song Cosey might strip to when she was doing her striptease gigs. As Industrial music has evolved and grown, 20 Jazz Funk Greats remains a regular touch stone release for the genre, nearly always included in any "best of" lists as a nod to the group who effectively invented the genre.

THROBBING GRISTLE - A SOUVENIR OF CAMBER SANDS @ 20

 

Marking 20 years since its release is the official live recording of Throbbing Gristle's second re-union performance, which was executed and immediately released on December 3rd, 2004. The event was part of a festival held by All Tomorrow's Parties at the Camber Sands resort on Britain's southern coast. The event had originally been planned to occur in May of that year, though it had to be cancelled at the last minute for reasons related to the organizers, having nothing to do with TG. TG still went ahead and performed a reunion show at the Astoria in London, on May 16th, honouring any ticket holders for the cancelled festival. The results of that show were recorded for the RE:TG video, which was eventually released in the TGV box set of the TG video archive in 2007. The initial intent of the RE:TG event was that TG would perform a single, "one and done" concert, with the band returning to their various other projects after that. However, with the festival rescheduled, TG were persuaded to regroup yet again for "one more" show, also promoted as the group's "final" appearance together.

The timing of the show was somewhat cast in a shadow thanks to the unexpected demise of Peter Christopherson's creative and life partner, Jhon Balance (Geoff Rushton), who had fallen to his death from the balcony of their home on November 13th. In the video from the Astoria gig, Balance can be seen at the foot of the stage during the finale of Discipline, rocking back and forth, evidently in the thralls of some transcendental moment. One can only imagine how difficult it was for Sleazy to perform so soon after that tragedy. In the video for the Camber Sands show, also included in TGV, Sleazy wears one of the infamous Coil fur suits that the band had recently used for some of their own live shows, as a tribute to Balance. You can also observe at one point in the performance, the emotional intensity of the moment becomes too much for Sleazy and he is overcome with grief and begins visibly sobbing. It's an incredibly touching moment of vulnerability.

The Camber Sands performance offered much of the same sort of mix of old and new material as the Astoria show, though there is a moment when the band acknowledges the loss of Balance with a brief tribute from Genesis. The principal innovation of the show was the fact that it was being recorded for immediate release on a double CD-R set that would be instantly duplicated at the show for those who wished to purchase a copy on site. Additional copies of the recording could be ordered directly from Mute Records. The resulting double album would be something of a rarity afterwards, until it was finally reissued in 2019 in a properly mastered, professionally manufactured double CD set, complete with track indexes, which were missing from the CD-R version. The benefit of proper mastering also remedied the issue of the overall lack of loudness on the CD-Rs.

Though this was supposed to be the final TG reunion show, it would not be long until the temptation to continue resulted in additional live performances, along with the group returning to the studio to record a new album, 2007's Part Two. The reinvigorated TG would continue on for six more years, until abruptly coming to an end again at the end of 2010, first with the sudden departure of Genesis P-Orridge after the first gig of of an EU mini tour, then with the sudden death of Peter Christopherson.

As a document of the band at the threshold of a new era of activity, A Souvenir of Camber Stands offers up an exceptional collection of music from a collective feeling the surge of creativity from a fresh influx of inspiration. The fact the group managed to reconnect at all after 23 years apart was something of a minor miracle. That they could find a new kind of relevance for themselves, completely sidestepping any blush of being a nostalgia act, was a testament to their integrity and artistic abilities.

THROBBING GRISTLE - RE:TG | TG NOW @ 20

 

May 16th marks the 20th anniversary of the first reunion performance in 2004 by Throbbing Gristle, after a near exact 23 year gap since the band's original "mission" was "terminated". The event also saw the release of a brand new mini album of studio recordings by the group, TG NOW, which was available for sale at the show and sold online in a limited edition afterwards. 

 

The unlikely reunion of TG began in 2002 with the release of the massive TG24 CD box set of live recordings, which was effectively a reissue of the group's self released cassette box set, 24 Hours of TG. The process of putting that release together facilitated communications between the group members which had not occurred since their breakup. An art exhibit of TG memorabilia, custom gear and other artifacts offered an opportunity for the group to get together in the same place for the first time in years. Things went well enough that Mute proposed the group reform and an agreement was made to do a single, one-off performance as part of All Tomorrow's Parties annual music festival to be held in May of 2004 at the Camber Sands resort. A great deal of publicity was put into the event, with TG fans bursting with excitement at the possibility of the band's reunion, but those balloons were burst when the news broke that the event had to be cancelled due to organizational issues with the promoter, a situation that was entirely outside the control of the band. 

 

But TG had built up too much momentum by this point to simply let this reunion be stifled by circumstance. They'd issued a collection of remixes, Mutant TG, and a new "Best Of" album, The Taste of TG, and had even recorded new music to release on special limited edition CDs and perform at the show. So the group quickly managed to secure an alternate venue at the Astoria in London where they could perform their set on their own on May 16th. The event was promoted as something rather similar to when they recorded Heathen Earth in front of an invited audience in their Studio back in 1980. For this, guests who had purchased tickets for RE:TG could use them for the Astoria show and, during the event, no one was allowed to enter or leave the building while the band performed, and the entire performance would be recorded and videotaped. 

 

The band had prepared a set that mixed brand new compositions with impromptu live improvisations and a sprinkling of classics from their original incarnation. Above all, they were determined that this would NOT be about nostalgia or looking back. This, as the album of new recordings proclaimed, was TG NOW! They were taking all of their skills and experience they'd gathered from the intervening 23 years and applying them to the essence of the band in order to create something fresh and new, Industrial Music for the 21st century. Their determination paid off and when you observe the audience reaction to the band in the live video, you can see why. There are people who are visibly moved to tears by the immense sound of the band as their pulverizing PA system throttled them with sounds. 

 

The TG NOW CD clearly demonstrated that there was still chemistry between the four members and that the sound of TG in the 21st century was capable of going in some surprising new directions. The tools had changed and the level of skills had evolved, but nonetheless, there was that "thing", that recognizable essence coming through that was unmistakably Throbbing Gristle, a whole that was unquestionably greater than the sum of its parts. 

 

Though this was intended to be a one-off performance, ATP eventually rescheduled their festival at Camber Sands for December of that year, though tragedy would befall the group with the accidental death of Jhon Balance (Geoff Ruston) after a drunken tumble from his home's balcony that summer. The group would then embark on a renewed collaboration that would last until the end of 2010, abruptly coming to a halt when Genesis P-Orridge walked away from a European tour without explanation. That event was followed by Peter Christopherson's sudden death in Bangkok a few weeks later, effectively sealing the group's fate and terminating its renewed mission, yet again. 

 

MUTANT THROBBING GRISTLE @ 20

 

Marking 20 years since its release is the Throbbing Gristle remix compilation, Mutant Throbbing Gristle (aka, Mutant TG), which was released on March 29th, 2004. The project was conceived as a way to help celebrate the unexpected reunion of TG for what was intended to be a one-off performance at the ATP event, RE:TG. That event was cancelled due to unforeseen organizational issues with ATP, but TG, nonetheless, were intent on performing again, so they scheduled a replacement performance at the Astoria on May 16 of 2004.

Rescheduling aside, after the release of the two mammoth and exhaustive live box sets, TG24 (2002) & TG+, issued in January of 2004, it only seemed appropriate to help refresh people's appreciation for TG by issuing a compilation album collecting various remixes of classic TG tunes, created by friends and admirers of the band. The collection featured remixes by Carl Craig, Hedonastik (Marc Harrison, Marc Rowntree, Steve Keeble), Andrew Weatherall & Keith Tenniswood (Two Lone Swordsmen), Bryan Black & Olivier Grasset (Motor), Carter Tutti & Simon Ratcliffe. The set brought some dance floor friendly funk to tracks like United, Hot On the Heels of Love, Persuasion, What A Day, Hamburger Lady and Still Walking. Along with a soon to be released "best of" compilation, The Taste of TG (issued on May 4th, 2004), this refresher course in Industrial music signified the beginning of a new phase of activity for the band, a renaissance that would carry them through to the end of the decade, with new studio albums, numerous live performances, art installations and a variety ephemeral novelty products, until it all fell apart again when Gen bailed and then Sleazy died at the end of 2010.

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.

D.O.A - THE THIRD AND FINAL REPORT OF THROBBING GRISTLE @ 45

Released on December 4th, 1978, the second studio album from Throbbing Gristle, D.O.A. - The Third and Final Report, is turning 45 years old today. After the relative success of their debut album, Second Annual Report, and it's follow up single, United b/w Zyklon B Zombie, TG were able to finance their next album on the sold out sales of their first, which they'd pressed in an initial run of less than a thousand copies. It wasn't a lot, but it was enough of a fiscal foothold that they were able to put a bit more into their recording process & production values than had been possible with the first album, including some actual multi-track recording and a colour LP sleeve.

By moving beyond the mostly live recordings of the first album, it was an opportunity to explore the band's sonic potential in a more controlled environment. There were still live excerpts on D.O.A., but there was more emphasis on crawling out of the murk and achieving some clarity with their sound. They also decided to reveal themselves individually within the context of the band, offering up solo tracks from each of the four members. Peter Christopherson concocted a pastiche of surveillance recordings and found sounds, Genesis plucked out a violin based existential suicidal lament, Cosey invoked homey intimacy with the sounds of children playing and a remarkably pastoral guitar, and Chris put together an electronica tribute to ABBA's Dancing Queen.

Overall, the album offered up a bizarre and rather disjointed collection of musing and examples of their controversial nature. Death Threats made a track out of their answering machine tape, capturing agitators leaving their condemnations for the group. I.B.M. was a harbinger of technological tyranny, E-Coli warned of a bacterial apocalypse and Hamburger Lady, the album's crown jewel, told the tale of a burn victim's unending torment. All in, the album may have been a bit of a dishevelled assemblage of impressions, but it certainly held together as an expression of the group's individual and collective obsessions.

The cover photo and calendar poster, included with the first 1000 copies, added to the controversy of the release by showing a young girl in a potentially exploitative situation, deliberately left ambiguous by the group in order to breed a sense of vague unease with the product. Other packaging games included having the second 1000 copies of the album pressed with false track markers (the "bands" visible on a vinyl disc) to give it the appearance of having fifteen tracks of exactly equal length and a short sixteenth track. The official TG discography called this pressing the "Structuralist Spirals" edition.

Because of the intensity of so many of its individual elements, the album may be one of TG's most challenging releases, outside the overt rawness of their purely live albums. It's not casual listening or background music and, while it has moments of softness, they are shattered by occasionally brutal assaults, or twisted by deeply unsettling dives into bleak oblivion, so one must constantly adjust to each composition's entirely distinct aesthetics. Ultimately, it's an album that manages to touch on nearly every corner of the human emotional landscape.
 

THROBBING GRISTLE - UNITED / ZYKLON B ZOMBIE @ 45

 

Issued 45 years ago this month is the debut single from Throbbing Gristle, United b/w Zyklon B Zombie, which was released in May of 1978. After coming out of the gates with a murky slurry of sonic despair for their debut LP, TG being ever the contrarians, felt it was necessary to demonstrate they were capable of knocking together a catchy pop song, despite any perceived musical limitations. The result was United, what appears to be a “love song” on the surface, although upon closer inspection, TG still managed to subvert the genre by bringing in allusions to obsession, identity confusion and occult references to Aleister Crowley’s Book of the Law. These sing-song musings sit atop a minimal yet catchy synth & drum machine rhythm, accented by occasional slashes of discordant guitar. But the mayhem is kept to a bare minimum with the results being what critic Jon Savage classified as the first “electropop” song. This respite from madness is short-lived, however, as the B-side returns the listener to the ravages of unfettered TG noise, this time focused on the subject of Nazi death camp poison gas, Zykon B. The single’s sleeve depicts an innocuous looking apartment complex and row of garages with an inset of some bare crossed limbs for the A-side, while the B-side shows Chris Carter in the shower with an inset of gas canisters sporting the label “Giftgas” and what looks strangely like a Psychic cross, albeit some years before Genesis would use a similar symbol for Psychic TV, his post TG project.

THROBBING GRISTLE - TG24 @ 20

 

Celebrating its 20th anniversary today is the CD reissue box set by Throbbing Gristle, TG24.  It was a completely remastered collection of live TG performances covering the period from their first appearance on July 6th, 1976, at the Air Gallery, to their Goldsmith College performance on March 13th, 1980.

Originally, in 1980, TG released a limited run of cassette box sets called 24 Hours of Throbbing Gristle.  The set included live recordings of their first 25 performances (IRC 03 contained two short shows, one per side).  The set also included two additional tapes of radio interviews, a personalized collage and group photographs.  This was all packaged in a black attache case.  These editions were hand duplicated using facilities at Industrial Records studio, therefore the number of editions issued was extremely limited.  Individual editions of some select live shows from this set were later sold separately by Industrial Records, as well as being licensed to other labels or bootlegged to create various live LP releases over the years. 

Sometime after the turn of the new millennia, Mute Records began negotiating with TG to remaster and reissue their back catalog, which included discussions of their live recording archive.  Eventually, a decision was made to reconstruct the 24 Hrs box set as a deluxe CD limited edition.  The process for doing this meant spending months trying to source the best possible versions of the original recordings which could be obtained, rummaging through the archives of all four band members.  TG recorded all their live performances on regular stereo cassettes, rather than reel-to-reel, some of which were in less than ideal condition by the time Chris Carter got around to trying to identify suitable versions to use for remastering.  In some cases, tapes were damaged and, in others, the actual recording had some technical issues which necessitated seeking out alternates.  For some performances, multiple simultaneous recordings were made.  One may have been direct from the mixing board while the other may have been an open mic recording to capture the sound in the audience.  The members of TG reviewed all alternative recordings to determine which version best captured the show and then selected that, even if it may have been of somewhat lesser quality, technically.  For the mastering Chris only employed minimal processing to adjust some output levels, though avoided using any compression.  Some digital noise reduction was employed in select recordings when the noise level was deemed distracting, but some noise was left in as its removal made the recording sound artificially “clean”.

During the process of putting the set together, Chris Carter initially gave up on including IRC-26 (Scala Cinema) because of insurmountable technical issues.  The ion generator used during TG’s live shows had a habit of discharging unexpectedly at times, throwing off sparks, and was so intense at this particular performance that it effected the cassette deck, ruining the second side of the tape with electronic interference.  An alternative show, IRC29 was selected to substitute.   The set of 24 CDs was already duplicated & packaged when the original master cassette was finally unearthed and found to have minimal issues with the recording.  An additional CD was then rushed into production so that the set ended up coming with a bonus 25th CD, added at the last minute. 

For the packaging of the CD edition, a special cloth bound box was created and embossed with the TG24 logo on the top.  Inside, along with the CDs - each of which was packaged in cardboard slip cases with printed graphics, the set included a large wax sealed envelope.  This was packed with an Industrial News magazine, numerous postcards, photos, badges and patches.  An authentication card was also included and signed by all four band members.  To launch the CDs, Mute set up a special art exhibit of TG memorabilia in a London gallery.  The exhibit featured such items as the original TG designer camouflage uniforms, custom audio equipment like Chris Carter’s “Gristlizer” sound processors and Sleazy’s cassette based “sampler” mini keyboard, along with press cuttings, posters and photographs.

Getting my hands on a copy of this set was one of the big WOW moments of my days of indulging in collectible musical products.  It was rather overwhelming to be suddenly in possession of so much TG music, much of which was completely unfamiliar to me.  Their live shows were never repetitive.  Certainly, as the group matured, some pieces found themselves performed live more than once, but they never sounded the same from show to show. For the most part, each performance from each show was its own entity.  Working through them all for an initial listen was a process that took a couple of weeks of exploring, usually one CD per day, if possible.  Live TG is not an “easy listening” experience, even in their “nicest” of incarnations.  Even with Chris’ remastering, the recordings were still sourced from cassettes, sometimes recorded off a mixing board and sometimes recorded using a binaural microphone system (the infamous “head” on a mic stand in the audience you can see in some TG live photos).  As such, the sound can be harsh, distorted and piercing, so you have to be in a certain state of mind to be able to appreciate what’s there.  Sometimes a TG show can seem like a pot just sitting there simmering on the stove with no real sense of anything happening.  Then, without warning, the BEAST can awaken and start tearing your ears apart.  You can be bored one minute and enthralled the next.  TG live was always like a conjuration of some kind of trans-dimensional entity breaking through with it’s Lovecraftian tentacles grasping at the audience’s perceptions.  Sometimes the spell worked, sometimes it didn’t or lasted only for a brief moment before dispersing.  But that was the magic of it all.

I don’t have the physical version of this set anymore, but I scanned and photographed it all and have digital files of all the audio.  I had to sell it off when money was tight and costs of living took precedence.  But it was a treasure while I had it and I tried to make sure it went to a good home when I did part with it.  I can’t think of many other groups who could release something like this and make it seem essential rather than self-indulgence.  A year after its release, a companion matching box set was issued to collect the remaining 10 live shows TG performed before their 1981 termination after their San Francisco final show.  The two boxes sure looked nice together and I’ll always be happy I had them in my home for the years they were here.

Creating this box set would not only revive interest for fans of TG, it also proved to be a catalyst for the group to reform not long after its release.  The process of putting the set together had managed to thaw the ice which had been long built up between certain members and, though some issues would remain contentious between them, the group did manage to enter into a highly productive second life until December of 2010, when Gen packed it in after their last live show in London and Sleazy passing beyond the veil shortly thereafter.

 

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.

THE SECOND ANNUAL REPORT OF THROBBING GRISTLE @ 45

 

Forty five years ago this month, in November of 1977, The Second Annual Report of Throbbing Gristle hit the record shops in the UK in its first edition of exactly 785 copies. Independently released by the band’s own imprint, Industrial Records, the run was precisely how much they could afford to press with their limited, self financed budget. It was the first major release from Industrial Records and would become the cornerstone for an entirely new genre of popular music.

TG had been bubbling up from the basement of their “Death Factory” at 10 Martello Rd. in Hackney for about two years before the album was released, mutating out of the carcass of COUM Transmissions, a multimedia transgressive performance art collective which had been operating since 1969. After being essentially chased out of their home town of Hull by local authorities, Genesis P-Orridge and Cosey Fanni Tutti managed to pull in fellow pervert, Hipgnosis photographer/designer Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson, and electronics wizard, Chris Carter, to complete the TG lineup before the end of 1975. After spending endless hours reinventing sound in their makeshift studio, the group began to perform live in 1976, kicking off their notoriety with the infamous Prostitution show at the ICA, which triggered off debate in the British parliament regarding the use of public funds for the arts. This also garnered them the infamous “wreckers of civilization” condemnation from one of the MPs.

Prior to the release of the album, a few cassette compilations were hand copied and unofficially circulated among friends until the group felt they’d got something worthy of pressing on vinyl. Side one of the album would mostly consist of extracts from four of their recent live performances, which had been recorded on stereo cassette. These would be edited together on 2 track reel-to-reel and augmented by a couple of studio tidbits. The side would end with a DJ from one of the live shows scolding the audience for their bad behavior. The second side of the album would consist of a single composition, the soundtrack to the COUM film, After Cease to Exist, recorded on 4 track reel-to-reel. The overall sound of the album ended up being a bubbling cauldron of murky noise, news radio & surveillance sound fragments and distorted vocals from Gen about things like Manson family style murdering as exemplified by a graphic description of a pregnant woman having her baby cut out of her belly. It was the ambience of dead factories and deserted streets mixed with images of suburban nightmares and it was deliberately as far away from the influence of American style blues and jazz as you could possibly conceive. Despite this, the group, on stage, still affected a kind of “rock band” configuration, using heavily processed, ineptly played guitar and bass, though without a drummer and accompanied by home made synths & electronics. The whole shebang was further processed through Chris’ custom made sound processors, the “Gristleizer”, giving it all a distinctly garbled modulation.

The album was presented in a plain white sleeve with a printed b&w sheet glued to the back containing a small photograph of the band and an extensive text detailing the product and its purpose. It was presented like a dry, clinical research paper from a soulless corporation of no particular distinction. Inside was included a long questionnaire which encouraged purchasers of the LP to complete and return to Industrial Records by mail. It was a tactical ploy to help the group establish both a kind of “fan club” correspondence and to develop internal data regarding their followers. The entire operation was quite brilliantly conceived to both parody corporate methodologies while leveraging their practical value for the groups own purposes.

Surprisingly, the LP quickly sold out and garnered some very favorable reviews, which took the group by surprise and brought them a level of credibility they’d not anticipated. The funds from the sale of the album were returned directly back into Industrial Records and used to finance further productions of records and singles. The master tapes for the first album were turned over to the founders of Fetish Records to use as a means of establishing their label. Fetish reissued the LP in a few different editions, including one where the record was remastered backwards and side two included an inadvertent addition to the audio in the form of some barely audible chamber music, which had been on a tape used for the remastering, but which was not properly erased and bled through the After Cease To Exist audio.

That particular backwards/chamber music version of the LP ended up being the record by TG which caused me to have my “epiphany” in terms of recognizing the importance of this music. It was on a night in December of 1984 when a friend and I dropped blotter acid called “Flash” (complete with a lightning bolt print on the tab) and listened to that album. It was during that experience when I comprehended that TG had done something much more fundamental than gone “primitive” with their music. They’d actually gone back into the DNA of sound itself and recombined it into something entirely new. Not that there weren’t precedents to this music prior to TG. The German experimental scene of the early 1970s had produced similar sounding recordings, but TG had identified something additional in terms of both the means of performing and the conceptual potential inherent therein. TG had created an entire methodology of presentation and packaging, as well as the use of transgressive, “taboo” subject matter. They devised a system of delivery which was constantly able to re-calibrate itself and apply contradictory juxtapositions in order to avoid any sense of predictability. Whatever the tangent, as soon as it was perceived as becoming “expected”, they’d swap things around and deliver something which seemed to oppose what went before.

As a foundational document, The Second Annual Report of Throbbing Gristle stands as one of the most vitally revolutionary musical artifacts to come along in the latter half of the 20th century. It utterly changed the way I perceive sound and how I approach the creation and performance of “music”.

THROBBING GRISTLE - THE DESERTSHORE INSTALLATION @ 15

 

Fifteen years ago today, on June 1st, 2007, Throbbing Gristle began a three day residency at the art gallery where they were first declared “wreckers of civilization” over three decades earlier. London’s ICA, Institute of Contemporary Arts, became host to a 12 hour installation, conducted in two hour segments, twice a day, over the course of three consecutive days (Friday, Saturday & Sunday). The Desertshore Installation was intended to offer its rotating audience a glimpse into the creative process of TG while they began work on a complete cover version of Nico’s classic album, Desertshore.

 

The idea for the project originated with Peter Christopherson, who wanted to take TG into new territory and push the collective into processes outside their comfort zone. The idea to do this in front of an audience was both daring and risky as they put themselves on display during the must vulnerable parts of their creative process. This was particularly challenging for Genesis P-Orridge, who was tasked with interpreting Nico’s idiosyncratic vocal style, often in languages other than English. The other members were less on the spot as some elements, like basic rough rhythm tracks, were prepared in advance of the installation.

 

In practice, the bulk of the sessions seemed to revolve around trying to capture usable vocal takes, though the group would intersperse these with numerous improvisations completely separate from the Nico songs. A selection of these improves eventually became mixed and augmented to form The Third Mind Movements album, which was issued in 2009 to coincide with the group's US mini-tour. The entirety of the show was videotaped and recorded on binaural digital audio with the audio portion issued in a limited edition 12 disc CD-R bound wallet set of approximately 250 copies. The video documentation has never been published to date to my knowledge.

 

After the installation and before the group could complete the album, Genesis suddenly & mysteriously departed TG after the initial London gig for a scheduled short EU tour in December of 2010. Peter Christopherson then died suddenly soon after that and the project lay dormant for a couple of years. Eventually, Chris Carter & Cosey Fanni Tutti took up the task of completing it in 2012, salvaging the recordings and equipment Sleazy had collected and taking it to their Norfolk schoolhouse studio for completion.

 

With Genesis estranged from them and the recordings of he/r vocals from the ICA sessions deemed unusable, the duo decided to take a different approach to finish the project and invited a number of friends and associates to do guest vocals. The resulting album was then released under the X-TG banner along with a second disc of improvisations recorded at their studio by Chris, Cosey & Peter before his death. A third ambient remix CD was also issued in a limited edition for close friends.  The Desertshore project would ultimately serve as a capstone for TG as no further material has yet to surface from the surviving Industrial Records shareholders.

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.

THROBBING GRISTLE - PART TWO - THE ENDLESS NOT @ 15

 

Marking its 15th anniversary today is the reunion album from Throbbing Gristle, Part Two - The Endless Not, which was released by Mute Records on this day, April 1st, 2007. More of a “re-birthing” than a reunion, it was the first fully realized studio album produced by the group since 20 Jazz Funk Greats in 1979.

The road to Part Two began back in 2002 with the reactivation of Industrial Records under Mute’s umbrella and the release of the sprawling TG24 box set of live recordings. This was concurrent with a museum exhibit of TG memorabilia and ephemera, which was held at the Cabinet Gallery in London in December. The occasion of this event was the catalyst for the four members of TG to come together again for the first time since disbanding in 1981. With the old wounds mostly mitigated by the passing of time, Mute began a process of encouraging the group to explore the potential of working together again, even if for only very specific and limited purposes.

The initial results of these efforts manifested in a planned one-off reunion performance to be called RE:TG. It was to have been part of a music festival put on by All Tomorrow’s Parties featuring an impressive lineup of groups who had been, in some way, inspired or influenced by TG. The event was well into being realized when it was abruptly cancelled due to logistical reasons beyond the groups control. However, the momentum of putting this together left the group in a position where they felt compelled to offer a performance, regardless of the situation with the festival. This resulted in the now legendary Astoria gig on May 15th, 2005, almost 23 years exactly since TG’s last appearance on stage.

The preparation for this performance involved the group going to the studio, not only to rehearse, but to come up with new material for the show. In typical TG fashion, they didn’t want this to be merely a “best of” set of fan favorites. They wanted to showcase how the individual members had progressed as artists and demonstrate what that development meant in terms of a 21st century incarnation of TG. Some of the material created during these sessions became the four track TG NOW EP, which was a souvenir release made available in a limited edition for the RE:TG event. The success of those recordings and the live performance then became the impetus to push beyond what they had foreseen as a one-time event.

After the Astoria show, other performances followed and more time was spent in the studio to work on additional materials with the objective of creating a full album of new TG compositions. Those efforts eventually culminated in the realization of Part Two - The Endless Not. The finished album featured all new material, save a reworking of Almost a Kiss from the NOW EP. Like the DOA album from 1978, Part Two features four individual solo tracks from each member, though Gen’s track was a collaboration with his Thee Majesty partner, Bryin Dall. Overall, the album offers a fully updated manifestation of Throbbing Gristle’s sound, with their collective knowledge and experience gained over the preceding decades readily apparent in the sophistication of the production. It was unmistakably “TG”, but that beast had evolved and grown into something new and vibrant. There was no rehashing of obvious old tropes and no nostalgia for their bygone glory days. This was 21st century TG for the present day and beyond.

The album was minimally packaged for the CD release with only a card insert in the front featuring a photo of Mount Kailash taken by Martin Gray. The initial run of the CD included a “totemic gift”, the production of which was overseen by Peter Christopherson at his compound in Thailand. The primary run included one of four items encased in the spine of the CD tray. Each was made from one of the following materials: bone, wood, rubber or copper. A fifth stainless steel totem was made available in a Japanese edition of the CD. A sixth totemic gift was made of 23 carat gold.

Critical reception for the album was generally very positive, as was the response from fans, though there were those who were not so enthusiastic about it all. Personally, I felt it was something of a minor miracle to be able to get a brand new album of TG music, something I never expected to happen prior to the reunion rumblings that began in 2002. I loved hearing how this creature could come back to life after so long and, not only exist, but be more than it had been in the past. Perhaps the overt confrontational nature of “classic” era TG was gone, but this was light years away from the kinds of rehash “oldies” reunion efforts that you see from most other aging bands.

TG would continue in this reconstituted form until December of 2010, when it would all come apart, first with the abrupt, mysterious departure of Genesis P-Orridge at the beginning of a short European tour, and then with the sudden death of Peter Christopherson. During their reunion era, they would release a number of recordings along with NOW and Part Two, but nothing which constituted a full, proper studio album. Third Mind Movements was essentially a collection of improves captured during the Desertshore Installation and 32nd Annual report is a live recreation of their first LP. Their Desertshore project would eventually materialize in 2012 under the X-TG banner, without Genesis being involved, so Part Two stands, like the mountain on its cover, as the sole complete manifestation of 21st century TG. Whether or not we’ll see anything else materialize from this era remains a mystery as Chris Carter and Cosey Fanni Tutti now remain as the sole gatekeepers of the TG archive. I suspect there are many recordings, both studio and live, which could be released at some point in the future, but no word has come in terms of any specifics. For now, this is what we’ve got to mark this creative period. It’s an album that sits along side a host of other releases from that year by the members of the group. It was a remarkable period with new albums from TG, Psychic TV, Sleazy’s post-Coil project, Threshold HouseBoys Choir, Carter Tutti & Thee Majesty. All in all, 2007 was a banner year to be a fan of the music created by these four remarkable individuals.

CARTER TUTTI VOID - TRANSVERSE @ 10

 

Released on March 26th, 2012, the debut album, Transverse, by Industrial super-group, Carter Tutti Void, turns 10 years old today.

In May of 2011, Mute Records organized a music festival of its artists called “Short Circuit”. For this event, they contacted Chris Carter & Cosey Fanni Tutti and proposed a one-off collaboration with Factory Floor’s Nik Colk Void. The trio agreed to do an impromptu performance for the festival and, after Chris Carter prepared some backing materials and they’d done a bit of rehearsing at Chris & Cosey’s studio in their Norfolk converted schoolhouse home, they performed their set at the Roundhouse in London on May 13th, 2011.

The impact of this performance took both the CTV trio and Mute by surprise with its intensity and enthusiasm. What they had managed to put on stage was a seamless fusion of old school industrial edge with modern electronic sophistication. With Carter manning the machines in the center, flanked by Cosey and Nik on noise guitars, they offered up an atonal, pulsing maelstrom of sound. However, rather than projecting the typical nihilism that has become associated with modern Industrial music, the effect of their performance was transcendent and joyful. All those shards of discordant sounds flailing against Chris’s rhythms were a celebration of unbridled, spontaneous creativity.

Nearly a year after its presentation, the recordings of this performance were finally released. What was intended to exist for a single night had taken on a life of its own, prompting further live performances and, eventually, two more albums to complete a triptych trifecta of soaring, searing electronic exuberance. The trio had demonstrated how challenging experimental music need not be confined by dour depression and hopelessness. They brought it all to life like some triumphant three headed mythological creature, which however briefly, strode across the contemporary musical landscape and left behind its examples of an entirely different disposition within the experimental music world.

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.

COUM TRANSMISSIONS | THROBBING GRISTLE - PROSTITUTION AT THE ICA @ 45

 

45 years ago today, on October 18th, 1976, The ICA (Institute of Contemporary Arts) in London England hosted the opening night of the infamous Prostitution exhibition by COUM Transmissions. Not only was this the culmination of the efforts of this transgressive multimedia arts collective, it was the official debut of their new alter-ego, Throbbing Gristle. In addition to the performance by TG, the exhibition included a series of framed pornographic images culled from member Cosey Fanni Tutti’s work in the adult publishing world, sculptures incorporating used female hygiene products and a burlesque performer.

Because of the use of public arts funding and its presentation in a government funded gallery, the press quickly took note of the exhibition’s controversial contents and started spinning a media frenzy around it, the likes of which was only surpassed just over a month later when the Sex Pistols swore a blue streak on British tea time TV. The public outrage over the show resulted in it being debated in the UK parliament where Tory MP Nicholas Fairbairn famously referred to the group as “wreckers of civilization” adding, "IT'S A SICKENING OUTRAGE! Sadistic! Obscene! Evil! The Arts Council must be scrapped after this!" In true meta-media form, COUM incorporated the show’s incendiary coverage into the exhibit by creating an evolving display of all the press cuttings published during the week the show was running.

As far as the career of COUM Transmissions was concerned, Prostitution is often considered the swan song of the art troupe, though a couple of minor actions & exhibits were undertaken afterwards. But for all practical purposes, the focus of the members shifted decisively to the activities of the new Throbbing Gristle project after this event. In retrospect, the ICA show was the perfect summary of COUM’s explorations of contemporary sexuality and cultural taboos. Cosey’s work as a professional pornographic model was central to this conception as she was able to work from the inside of the industry, clandestinely examining it and how sexual representation is manipulated by the media, even as it simultaneously stands in judgment against the so-called perversions represented by these illicit materials. The contradiction of availability and prohibition formed an essential dynamic in terms of how the materials were presented. The framed images, which had been intended to be openly displayed on the wall, had to be hidden away in a back room because of censorship so that people had to request to see them privately and flip through the works because they were not allowed to be shown openly in the gallery.

TG’s “debut” was, in fact, not the group’s first public appearance. They’d done something of a “soft launch” at a couple of brief shows in July and August of that year where they tested their legs a bit before the official launch of the group on October 18th. While the earlier shows offered up a somewhat tentative version of TG, the ICA show presented them in a completely realized form, fully prepared to confront a dazed audience who were hit with a sound and substance which subverted the structure of a “rock group” into a new kind of entity. They used familiar signifiers in a way which deconstructed the essence of the music. There was no drummer, the guitarist didn’t know how to play, nor really did anyone, though Chris at least had some mastery of the electronics which gave TG its signature sound. Where early COUM’s dalliances with music had been more acoustic based and akin to “hippy” freestyle jamming, TG offered up an electrified sound that, while bereft of any traditional musical technique, seemed laser focused on some as-yet undetermined objective. Genesis began the show with a desolate noise behind him while he described the post-industrial wasteland of the modern urban world, dog barking in the distance of a bleak landscape of alienation and anxiety. This was the moment when “Industrial Music for Industrial People” was born.

The aftermath of this exhibit left a lot of questions in the minds of the public and the press and it remains one of the most infamous and controversial shows ever put on by the ICA. Though COUM and TG were questionable at the time, they’ve since been recognized as creative pioneers with archives of their work officially acquired by by the gallery in recent years. They’ve also done retrospectives of the Prostitution show, including a 2016 40th anniversary presentation featuring readings by Cosey Fanni Tutti.

It’s far more difficult these days for artists to generate controversy and outrage to the extent that was possible back then. The public and the art world are much more jaded and familiar with attempts at transgression and these efforts usually come off as desperate pleas for attention rather than efforts to change the way people think or perceive their world. COUM & TG were equipped with a serious arsenal of cultural weaponry when they instigated these works, fortified by years of exploration and experimentation and an intent to impact the way people perceive and interpret the world. It wasn’t merely “shock value” self-indulgence, like so many who came in their wake. As such, there’s still a great deal that can be learned from their works and the artifacts to be found in their aftermath.

THROBBING GRISTLE - GREATEST HITS @ 40

 

Forty years ago this month, in October of 1981, Throbbing Gristle released the capstone of their brief yet confrontational career, Greatest Hits - Entertainment Though Pain. It’s a compilation of some of their most notorious music, including some non-album singles, intended to offer the curious a convenient though subversive introduction to these “wreckers of civilization”.

The album, like 20 Jazz Funk Greats, trades on deception right on its cover, while also paying tribute to one of the band’s most surprising influences, Martin Deny, who’s music often closed TG’s live performances and served as inspiration for more than one composition. The front is a direct parody of his ‘50s Exotica covers with Cosey filling in as the model with bamboo curtains draped in the background. The back cover offers the band photo, again all looking super friendly and fun, just like 20-JFG. This image sits next to a hype essay courtesy of Claude Bessy, who expounds upon the mysteries and marvels of our heroes. It’s a perversely rambling attempt to make sense of the band’s career in the wake of the recent “termination” of their “mission”. It’s suitably obtuse and does a good job of elucidating at the same time as intensifying their mystique.

Inside, the album does its best to touch all the bases covered over the course of the band’s 5 years of activity. It’s mostly kept to the more accessible tracks like Hot On the Heels of Love, but you get a bit of the edge thrown in for good measure with tracks like Subhuman & Hamburger Lady. Ultimately, it does what it says on the tin and gives the novice TG listener a handy gateway into their demented and demanding world with just enough cushion to soften the harder blows while twigging the imaginations of the adventurous to want to poke around for something more.

THROBBING GRISTLE - LIVE AT THE AIR GALLERY @ 45

 

July 6th marks the 45th anniversary of the premier live performance by Throbbing Gristle, which was held at the Air Gallery in London, UK, in 1976. 

While the “Prostitution” performance at the ICA on October 18th of the same year is generally considered TG’s “official” debut, with its attendant press and resulting controversy (where an MP notoriously referred to the group as “wreckers of civilization”, an epithet they handily appropriated for their own mythos, thank you very much!), there were two shows prior to this which constituted TG’s “soft launch”. Those being the Air Gallery on July 6th and the Winchester Hat Fair show on Aug 21st. These were much less promoted affairs and were essentially a warmup for what would be put on at the ICA. 

For the Air Gallery show, the group were set up in a manner which separated the group’s performing space from the audience’s position with the PA system. The group were in a central courtyard area which was only visible from certain windows in the building while the PA was positioned away from the windows so that, in order to hear the performance, the audience would not be able to see the group and those who could see the group could not hear the PA. Musically, the set consisted of a continuous rambling instrumental dirge with little resembling anything that would manifest into any recognizable TG compositions. The various releases of the recording list no track names with "Dead ED" and "Very Friendly" on the cassette cover only being applicable to the Winchester Aug 21st recording. The monaural recording is dominated by Genesis’ base & violin and Cosey’s fuzz guitar, with Carter’s synths swelling up from time to time and virtually no audible evidence of Sleazy’s presence. 

At this point, the group had been together barely a year, having mutated out of the primordial ooze of COUM Transmissions when, first Peter Christopherson and then Chris Carter joined long time collaborators, Genesis P-Orridge and Cosey Fanni Tutti. Carter’s arrival, in particular, shifted the focus from transgressive performance art to sonic exploration. After a year of experimenting with techniques and tools at their Death Factory studio in Hackney, where the foundations of Industrial Records would take shape, bringing TG to the public became the next step and the first footing on that journey began with the Air Gallery show. 

It’s an embryonic entity that exists in the recording of this show. The mood is almost contemplative and introspective, lacking the sense of confrontation that would characterize their shows starting with the ICA performance. The beast was just waking up, testing its limbs and lurching out from the weight of its placental remnants and amniotic fluids. It was certainly imbued with the distinctive dissonance that would become its trademark, but it just needed to take a few steps before standing fully erect to reveal its true stature. This it would do soon enough and the strides it would take would leave their indelible imprints across the landscape of modern music in the last quarter of the 20th century and beyond into the 21st.

THROBBING GRISTLE - JOURNEY THROUGH A BODY @ 40

Forty years ago, in March of 1981, during the week beginning Monday the 16th and continuing through Friday the 20th, Throbbing Gristle occupied a residency at the prestigious Italian National Radio’s RAI Studios in Rome.  They were there as a result of Cosey Fanni Tutti being referred to the institution by Robert Wyatt when it was looking for contributors for a project based on the concept of a “Journey Through a Body”.  Once offered the commission, the opportunity quickly extended to include the entire TG ensemble.  The group then traveled to Italy and began work on what would become their final studio album before terminating the TG mission following their last live performance in San Francisco on the 29th of May that year.

The constraints conceived for this project had TG recording one completely improvised composition per day for a total of five pieces corresponding to the basic body parts, though there appears to be no documentation on how each track corresponds to which part.  Because, as Cosey recollected in her Art Sex Magic autobiography, the studio techs were essentially “useless”, being either stoned or drunk most of the time, TG were pretty much left to their own devices while recording.  Having traveled with only a few bits of their own gear, the group primarily relied upon whatever instruments, effects and production tools were available in the RAI studio.  They had made no advance preparations for any of the recordings and each day’s work was mixed to its final form at the end of that day with no further production, remixing or overdubs done after that.  Following the completion of the sessions, RAI refused to release the master tapes to the group and only provided a cassette dub of the recordings.  The album was then unofficially released in 1982 by Walter Ulbricht Schallfolien, and remained a scarce, occasionally bootlegged rarity until Mute & Industrial Records finally acquired the masters and issued an official version of the album on CD in 1993.  They wouldn’t release an official vinyl version until 2018.

As mentioned, the album consists of 5 mostly instrumental sections, each offering a distinct mood and style.  The album opens with the sprawling, harrowing medical nightmare, Medicine, clocking in at an imposing 15+ minutes.  Its layers of beeping monitors, wheezing air pumps and general hospital room discord put the listener on life support in the role of a patient in medical stasis.  From there, things get erotic as a plodding, vaguely funky drum machine accompanies sounds of sexual copulation and occasional spoken word overdubs from Genesis.  The mood gets lighter and more serene in the third movement as we get TG’s most literal homage to Martin Deny in the form of Exotic Functions, complete with bird calls and waterfalls.  The penultimate section does an abrupt about-face into brute force and aggression before the album resolves in the final section with a dreamy kaleidoscope of piano noodling which sounds very much like an ancestral precursor to a Psychic TV piece, Mirrors, which would be recorded using a strikingly similar template a few years later as a soundtrack to the short film of the same name by Derek Jarman.

Overall, the sound of Journey Through a Body is idiosyncratic, even by TG’s standards.  Being created using facilities, instruments and tools other than the usual Industrial Studios setup meant that the textures and ambiences achieved all feel and sound quite different from anything the group had created before.  While there are distinctly “TG” style performance techniques on display, the result feels alien and dissociative given the unfamiliar sound palette.  Hearing pianos and other acoustic elements integrated into the TG sound is almost jarring.  There was also something of a gap for the band in terms of being in the studio together.  Their last album, Heathen Earth, had been recorded just over a year prior to this, in February of 1980, and the only other studio work they’d dune after that was recording the double 7” releases (Adrenalin/Distant Dreams, Subhuman/Something Came Over Me), synchronously released in October of 1980.  As such, the group hadn’t been spending a lot of time in the studio together and, indeed, their personal relationships were nearing their breaking point as the conflict between Gen and Cosey & Chris became more entrenched.  One can only wonder what the mood was like in the studio for these sessions and how their personal issues may have contributed to the overall feel of the album.

As previously stated, Journey Through a Body would be the final studio recording of TG before their split.  The group would not set foot in a studio together again until March of 2004, almost exactly 23 years later, to record the TG NOW EP in preparation for their live performing return later that year.  For many years, Journey Through a Body existed in a twilight of bootlegs and mythology before being reclaimed by the band and made an official part of its canon.  It is often considered their least popular recording, though to be fair, its genesis and manifestation were unique and the results offer a distinct perspective on their approach as seen through the prism of a decidedly foreign environment and tool set.  It still managed to capture TG in all their varieties, from creeping insidiousness to seductive enchantment to brutal assault.