Chris & Cosey

Chris & Cosey was a musical duo consisting of Chris Carter and Cosey Fanni Tutti, both previously members of industrial music pioneers Throbbing Gristle.

They formed from the as

Chris & Cosey was a musical duo consisting of Chris Carter and Cosey Fanni Tutti, both previously members of industrial music pioneers Throbbing Gristle.

They formed from the ashes of Throbbing Gristle in 1981, setting out upon a career at the high point of new wave, and proving the most consistent of many of their peers. Given free rein to expand upon his machine rhythm technique and use of lush, synaethesic keyboards, Chris Carter provided a glistening backdrop to Cosey's vocals, often consisting of two or three words, yet dominating the atmoshere of much of the proceeding music. Much of Chris & Cosey's mid-1980's work could be forseen in both members solo albums - Carter's 'The Space Between' (originally an Industrial cassette, re-issued for CD by Mute in 1990) and Tutti's 'Time to Tell' both retained the most compelling elements of the group sound. The debut LP, "Heartbeat", saw the Throbbing Gristle chaos abandoned in favour of crisp, cascading electronics and subtle use of tape, cornet and Cosey's resonant guitar striations. The follow-up, 1982's 'Trance', suddenly took on a whole new sound: the crisp, stuttering beats disintegrate into ocean-deep bass and swirling cornets, with just "Re-education through labour" and it's jagged, thumping beats and clamouring samples peeking through the maze of 'Trance's psychedelic dub surface. As a testament to their influence on European electronic music, Scottish label T&B Vinyl issued a double album of remixes (or, as the LP says "tributes") featuring Mike Paradinas, Carl Craig and former creative partners, Coil. As CTI, their collective vehicle, they issued the LP and video 'Elemental 7' (featuring a stunning and stylistically prophetic film for the track "Dancing ghosts") through Cabaret Voltaire's DoubleVision imprint, followed in 1989 by the stunning collaborative collection, 'Core', once again featuring pals Coil ("Feeder"), plus an astonishing Cosey "duet" with Robert Wyatt ("Unmasked"). Another unique CTI project, the 'Library of Sound' series, features the mirage-like 'Metaphysical' and the powerful shamanistic electronica of 'Chronomanic'. To greet the 21st Century, Chris & Cosey became CarterTutti, celebrating the rebirth with a series of transcendental concerts and documented on the live album 'LEM Festival October 2003'. The rebirth was completed by the release of 'Cabal', a vivid and eclectic statement taking the original Chris & Cosey sound as the heart and replacing the structure with a maze of filters, drones, collapsed beats and Cosey's most confident vocals since 1990's songly 'Pagan Tango'. Concurrent to recent activities, Carter and Tutti have become involved with Throbbing Gristle, whose timely All Tomorrow's Parties festival appearance and 'TGNOW' album promises to culminate in a new album in 2006. The next CarterTutti recording is planned for late 2005.