Menu

Conspiracy International

cosey-fanni-tutti-delia-derbyshire-the-myths-and-the-legendary-tapes-Cover-Art

Cosey Fanni Tutti, “Delia Derbyshire: The Myths and the Legendary Tapes” (Conspiracy International, 2022)

, ,

We seem to be in the midst of a long-overdue Delia Derbyshire renaissance at the moment due to the efforts of filmmaker Caroline Catz, Cosey Fanni Tutti, BBC Radiophonic Workshop’s Mark Ayres, and others. Fittingly, this unusual and inspired album was commissioned back in 2018 as a score for Catz’s similarly unconventional feature-length documentary. Sadly, it seems damn near impossible to see Catz’s film at the moment (outside the UK, at least), but this soundtrack was released earlier this year to coincide with Cosey’s own foray into telling Derbyshire’s story (Re-Sisters: The Lives and Recordings of Delia Derbyshire, Margery Kempe and Cosey Fanni Tutti).

The book, film, and album were all inspired by research into Derbyshire’s archive and the voluminous recordings and writings that became available after the visionary electronic artist’s passing in 2001. Apparently, copyright issues are preventing much of Derbyshire’s unearthed work from seeing an official release (there are some great unofficial ones like Inventions For Radio/The Dreams out there), but this album is a compelling consolation prize: using Derbyshire’s notes on her compositions and techniques, Cosey has achieved a sort of posthumous homage/collaboration in which her own aesthetic is co-mingled with Derbyshire’s singular and groundbreaking techniques and sounds.

While Delia Derbyshire is far from a household name, it is something of a miracle that she ever managed to be revered at all, as her musical career only spanned 15 years and took place at a time when neither women nor electronic music were taken particularly seriously. On top of that, she also had an eccentric personality, a tendency towards alcoholism, and an employer (the BBC) who did not consider her work to be “music” enough for her to be credited as a composer. Fortunately, she was both motivated and fucking brilliant, so she still managed to make a profound impact on the evolution of music despite those incredibly long odds. And it did not hurt that she was responsible for the Doctor Who theme, which made a sizable cultural dent of its own.

It is hard to say whether or not there would have been a Throbbing Gristle had Derbyshire and her Radiophonic Workshop colleagues not forced weird electronic music into the mainstream, but I do think Derbyshire might have traumatized the general populace to a Gristle-y degree in the early ’60s if her gear had been more portable. Obviously, bloody-minded persistence in the face of disrespect and hostility is a relatable theme for Cosey as well, so it is hard to think of another artist who could be more naturally suited for a project such as this.

Due to the aforementioned copyright issues, Catz obviously had a very frustrating obstacle to overcome, as it is a tall order to convey a composer’s boldly unique vision or lasting influence without being able to play any of their major pieces. That is, of course, how Cosey came into the picture—she gamely immersed herself in the archive’s collection (267 reel-to-reel tapes found in cereal boxes, I believe) and Derbyshire’s notes and set about casting a Delia-esque spell in her own way on her own gear (though Delia’s actual voice does make some appearances). As an aside, this is not Cosey’s first homage to Derbyshire, as Carter Tutti’s “Coolicon” took its name and inspiration from a metal lampshade that Delia regularly used to make sounds.

Interestingly, my initial impression of the album was that it captured the whole vibe of Derbyshire’s known work quite well, but it had the (brooding) “ambient” feel that plagues a lot of soundtracks by design (good composers tend to focus on crafting and sustaining moods rather than on tearing the audience’s focus away from the screen images). That said, the album does begin with a piece centered around Cosey’s signature cornet that feels like an excerpt from a lost TG album devoted to soulful sax melodies for lovers (that immediately curdle, smear, and get enveloped in a black ooze of electronic drones, of course). I thought a few pieces stood out as especially good, but I did not fully appreciate Cosey’s vision until I listened to the album on headphones at sufficient volume. That is when I realized that this album had some serious bite and that there was considerably more depth and nuance than I was previously aware of. Apparently, the difference between decent ambient music and a compelling electronic composition can sometimes be remedied with just a volume knob.

In any case, this album is a sustained plunge into a rabbit hole of retro-futurist psychedelia, cryptic voice fragments, and cool electronic sounds. It works nicely as an immersive whole, but several individual pieces come and go quite a bit quicker than they deserve. The one-minute lysergic cabaret of “Psychedelic Projections,” for example, sounds like a would-be highlight from Love’s Secret Domain. Elsewhere, I quite liked the psychotropic air raid nightmare of “Sirens” and the wonky Ghost Box-adjacent cosmic horror of “Four Bebe.” That said, there are plenty of other wonderfully unique and warped moments strewn throughout the album, as my notes are filled with phrases like “a horse dissolves into extradimensional ghost dust,” “a cold wind blows through an empty shack where something bad happened,” “subterranean exotica by nightmare people,” and “sounds like a creepy fairytale about a sneezing gnome.” Anyone who can convincingly evoke even one of those scenes is probably deserving of my undying respect and Cosey manages to nail like ten of them here. This is an impressively alien album.

Listen here.

R-14071919-1612276175-9541

Carter Tutti Void, “Triumvirate” (Conspiracy International, 2019)

,

This second studio album from the wonderful union of Chris Carter, Cosey Fanni Tutti, and Nik Void is a bittersweet affair, as the trio have announced that it will be their final release. I dearly wish that was not the case, as this beloved project never quite reached its full potential. That said, Triumvirate does display some significant evolution since 2015’s f(x) though, as Chris Carter’s grooves have never been more vibrant or dynamically inventive. 

Characteristically, however, the trio’s songwriting efforts essentially begin and end with that achievement, so almost none of these six pieces ever fully transcend the feeling of a jam (though they are certainly tightly edited jams). That incredibly constrained aesthetic continues to frustrate me, as Triumvirate‘s narrow focus on repeating that formula with slight variations unavoidably yields diminishing returns regardless of how delightfully explosive and kinetic that formula can be. As such, Triumvirate essentially offers a welcome and somewhat more dancefloor-focused repeat of the project’s previous pleasures, yet misses the chance to go out with something a bit more memorable and extraordinary.

For better or worse, it cannot be said that Carter Tutti Void are inconsistent, as the project’s fundamental template has not wavered much at all over the course of their eight-year existence. Much like the live Transverse and the studio-recorded f(x) before it, Triumvirate is another series of Chris Carter grooves embellished by the pedal-stomping, dual-guitar sorcery of Cosey and Void. The tone of the project, however, is not nearly as static: in hindsight, f(x) now feels like a transitional release in which the clanking and gnarled Gristle grooves of Transverse began to morph into more pulsing and driving fare a la Chris & Cosey/Carter Tutti. 

With Triumvirate, that transformation is arguably complete, as these six pieces feel like a stripped-down Carter Tutti album swirling with echoing and hallucinatory scrapes and moans. Unfortunately, that transition from shambling industrial soundscapes to taut, sensuous synthpop did not come with a corresponding increase in melodic or harmonic content. As such, Triumvirate feels like a great Carter Tutti album with a very important element conspicuously absent: there are no chord changes (or even chords) and even the most melodic bass lines remain locked in largely unchanging loops. This feels like pop music, but without any verses, choruses, transitions, or sense of ever building towards anything more—each piece is just a single theme that unfolds for six or seven minutes, then stops. 

The closest thing to an exception is “T 3.5,” which features enough of a structured vocal motif to at least feel like a deconstructed dub-version of something that was once a fully formed song. For the most part, however, Carter Tutti Void feel like a trio who brought all their best ideas to a session, yet discovered that an imaginary fourth member (in charge of bringing all of the crucial melodic framework) had to cancel.

For his part, Chris Carter seems impressively hellbent on overcoming that obstacle almost single-handedly and it is his dexterous beat-juggling that makes Triumvirate a compelling listen despite its flaws. In a few cases, his efforts miraculously prove to be enough, as the rhythms in “T 3.2” and “T 3.3” have enough relentless forward momentum and constant dynamic transformation to make me forget that there is not much else happening. 

The latter is my favorite piece on the album, as Carter deftly adds, subtracts, and alters percussive elements as his throbbing, burbling rhythm barrels relentlessly forward through a maelstrom of groaning metallic and sci-fi-damaged sounds from Tutti and Void. Carter’s rhythmic ingenuity goes beyond seamlessly altering cymbal patterns or changing textures though, as the tempo and intensity of the piece organically transform as well, imbuing it with a wonderfully visceral and satisfying arc. 

The opening “3.2” is a bit less rhythmically nuanced, but it compensates by featuring a burbling sequencer pattern that disappears and reappears throughout its duration. Beyond that, it is also quite a delightfully improbable marriage of stomping, clapping dancefloor thump and spaced-out guitar psychedelia. I am also quite fond of the aforementioned “T 3.5,” as it gradually builds from a lurching quasi-industrial crawl to an infectiously fluid and pulsing groove. 

Moreover, it features some of Void and Tutti’s most varied and compelling onslaughts, as the pair unleash a host of strangled bleeps, burned-out riff fragments, shuddering strings, and phantasmal reverberations. I am definitely impressed with the depth and breadth of the sounds those two are able to wrest from their gleefully misused guitars. Not many guitarists could make it through an entire album without running out of interesting scrapes, rattles, and snarls if that was (nearly) the full extent of the palette they allowed themselves.

I should note here that I do genuinely like this album, in case that is not clear from my earlier grumbling. I am always more critical when it comes to artists that I love and watching such artists come maddeningly close to producing a masterpiece is always rough. And I would definitely count Triumvirate as an instance of a missed masterpiece, as there were countless times over the course of the album where I was nagged by the thought that a song could be so much better if there was even something as simple as a chord change. 

Every single performance on this album is great, but all of that effort would have been so much better spent in service of songs with some hooks or any kind of melodic framework at all. Obviously, time was likely a major issue, as all three artists were working on solo projects (among other things), but it just seems like such a missed opportunity for the swansong of this great project for this to be yet another set of jams rather than something more substantial. 

On the bright side, at least they are damn good jams—while the broad strokes definitely feel like variations on a very familiar theme, the trio’s attention to detail and small-scale textural and dynamic shifts makes for compelling deep listening. Still, I sincerely hope that this is not actually the last time that this trio surfaces, as this project has produced some of the most vital and inspired work from Chris and Cosey in years. Barring a reunion, I will grudgingly settle for Chris Carter bringing this same level of rhythmic intensity to whatever he does next. In any case, this project is going out with a flawless three-album hot streak of strong releases, even if this one exasperatingly brims with the promise of something even greater.

R-13172150-1565775704-6814

Cosey Fanni Tutti, “Tutti” (Conspiracy International, 2019)

,

It would be misleading to say that Cosey Fanni Tutti has been a singularly unprolific solo artist, as her oeuvre has never been constrained to simply music, but it is noteworthy that her last original solo album (Time to Tell) was released almost four decades ago. That album was stellar, setting quite a high bar for future releases. Also significant: Cosey’s career has undergone a well-deserved renaissance in the last couple years, culminating in the release of her acclaimed memoir Art Sex Music. 

As a result, Tutti has the somewhat unenviable curse of being an album preceded by months of anticipation and high expectations. For better or worse, Cosey has nimbly sidestepped that situation to some degree, as Tutti is more of a soundtrack than a major new artistic statement—musically, anyway. On a conceptual level, this album is loosely intended as a career-spanning self-portrait built from reworked archival recordings. Cosey took that “reworking” part quite seriously though, so this album often feels like a warmly hallucinatory collection of instrumental Chris & Cosey remixes despite the submerged ghosts of more abrasive and transgressive days.

The initial idea for this album originated as part of the 2017 COUM Transmissions retrospective in Cosey’s hometown of Hull, as she was asked to create a new work for the event. She chose to make an autobiographical film that recounted her early life in the city through family photos and various visual ephemera from the era. She accompanied it, appropriately enough, with a live soundtrack assembled from various audio fragments of her life, visual/performance art, and music. Thankfully, that particular COUM Transmissions retrospective did not scandalize an entire nation or get Tutti rebranded as a wrecker of civilization. It did, however, result in this album, as Cosey later expanded upon the original performance in her studio. 

That said, if I did not know the album’s background, it is unlikely that I would ever deduce its inspirations and hidden depths, as it often feels more like a series of pulsing grooves than a poignant journey through evocative samples or a monument to a life’s work. The title piece is an especially prominent example of that aesthetic, as it barrels along as a throbbing, motorik-sounding bit of propulsive synth pop, albeit one enlivened by a smoky cornet solo and skittering, shuddering flourishes of dub-style production. The rest of the album is a bit less straight-forward than that though, as it often feels more like an indomitable throbbing, thumping groove keeps getting submerged in woozy backwards melodies and eruptions of strange noises, yet quickly fights its way back to the surface each time. Much of the album occupies an interesting gray area that is not quite pop, yet teems with grooves and snatches of melody blurred into something more elusive.

That said, there is a definite structure and arc to the album, as the first several songs are more beat-driven, while the second half steadily grows more abstract and soundscape-esque. Unsurprisingly, those early pieces make the strongest initial impression, particularly “Moe,” which sneakily builds from a hallucinatory flutter of backwards guitar into a sensuously throbbing groove. The preceding “Drone” is noteworthy as well, as a host of gnarled and ugly Gristle-like sounds increasingly blossom from a squelching, off-kilter beat. As I grew more familiar with the album, however, it was the album’s more strange and subtly lysergic fare that began to leave a deeper impact. 

My favorite piece is “En,” which feels like an impressively sophisticated dub-influenced revisitation of Gristle’s murky ugliness, as a submerged groove quietly burbles and simmers beneath a phantasmagoric soup of vaguely sinister buzzes, swoops, and animal-like howls. “Split” is similarly dark, gradually building from a subdued and benign-sounding pulse into a crescendo of massive shuddering sounds that feels like a plague of sky-blackening, mechanized birds with malevolent intent. Between those plunges into Tutti’s darker past, however, lurk a handful of more melodic, tender, and light pieces. “Heliy,” for example, feels like a distant relative to more romantic moments like “October Love Song,” albeit one that has been stretched and blurred into dreamy abstraction. The closing “Orenda” is similarly lovely, unfolding as a languorous procession of warm, shimmering clouds that feel like they have enveloped and softened the sounds of a bustling city.

As likable as Tutti can be, however, I cannot help wishing that I could have experienced these songs in their original and intended context, as this album is kind of a perverse self-portrait on its own. In fact, it verges on self-camouflage, as Cosey’s voice is the most iconic and instantly recognizable aspect of her musical work and it rarely surfaces here (and even then only in heavily manipulated form). That makes this a bit curious album, as it feels more like an impressive feat of production and craftsmanship than it does a bold artistic statement: there are plenty of strong ideas here, but they have been smoothed over by (admittedly skilled) artifice into something more accessible than challenging or provocative.

That said, Cosey is at the peak of her powers in many ways, as this is a catchy, fast-moving, vividly realized, and expertly sequenced batch of songs (even if there are no obvious singles). I just would have expected a solo album to be more personal departure from Carter Tutti (or Carter Tutti Void) rather than a variation of those styles sans collaborators. I suspect that the film got the lion’s share of the vulnerability and emotional depth in this multimedia project though and the music was primarily for color, pace, and mood. I am definitely the victim of my own expectations here. 

Granted, Time to Tell was amazing and this second solo release has been a long time coming, but Art Sex Music and Carter Tutti Void were great and Cosey’s creative energies have been spread in a lot of different directions over the last few years. No one can endlessly churn out bold reinventions and significant statements across several disciplines forever. As such, Tutti is merely another very good album and a solid addition to an already wonderful body of work. Fans will definitely dig it, but it is more of a pleasant treat and a polished, breezily listenable tour of her artistic evolution than it is a fresh masterpiece or culminating achievement.