Armed with a soldering iron and a stack of ABBA singles, Chris Carter became one of the founders of Industrial Records, a member of Throbbing Gristle, and an innovator who has explored the extremities of sound. His legacy includes a music genre, a novel effects unit, and a body of work that is uniquely evocative.
Carter trained as a sound technician with various TV companies before joining TG. This practical experience gave him a foundation as a tinkerer and an income to purchase synthesisers and drum machines, which became his instrument of choice. One of Carter’s most famous creations was the Gristleizer, which processed sounds for TG on stage and in the studio.
When TG terminated its mission, Carter and Cosey Fanni Tutti established themselves as a household and an act. The bedrock of the Chris & Cosey sound was the electronic pattern generation that Carter had developed for TG, fused with Cosey’s sensual vocals. The love affair between the duo provided inspiration, alongside the horror films and tabloid sensations that fed the industrial genre. They also launched a label (Conspiracy International) to release their own works and collaborations, and sometimes presented themselves as The Creative Technology Institute.
C&C became Carter Tutti in the early 2000s, as the pair started to revisit and reinterpret their original works. New ideas and new technologies allowed them to pull apart their songs and reassemble them. At the same time, they found space to work on their own material. For Carter, that included a collaboration with Ian Boddy, the Small Moon EP, and the album, Chris Carter’s Chemistry Lessons, Volume 1.
Carter remains an in-demand remixer, having reworked songs for Erasure, S’Express, Lone Swordsman, Chris Liebing, and Factory Floor. He has also worked on the development of unique synth modules for Future Sound Systems. These include a Eurorack version of the Gristleizer, which allows owners to become “wreckers of civilisation” at home.
10. Throbbing Gristle – Adrenalin
With songs like “United” and “Hot on the Wheels of Love,” Throbbing Gristle were able to demonstrate serious electronic credentials. Although known best for putting into practice the slogan, “entertainment through pain,” the band were able to leverage Carter’s synth skills for sweet instrumentals and “Tesco disco” tracks.
Paired with “Distant Dreams (Part Two),” the “Adrenalin” single featured the modular and home-made kit that Carter had assembled in the band’s Hackney studio.
9. Throbbing Gristle – AB/7A
Carter’s love of ABBA is well-documented. It wasn’t through irony that he crafted this homage for the 1978 album, DOA.
8. Chris & Cosey – Just Like You
Throbbing Gristle contained the seeds of its own destruction. Like the Smurfs, there was only one female character, and her affections were reserved for Chris. That was an issue for the Genesis P-Orridge, with whom Cosey had been entangled from pre-TG days. A split occurred and the couple emerged as Chris & Cosey.
The first C&C album marked a change in direction. Without the baggage and compromised compromises of TG, Carter was able to give full throat to his synths. The result was a screaming, energetic sense of release.
7. Chris & Cosey – Mary
The European Rendezvous album captured Chris & Cosey playing live during their 1983 tour.
6. Chris Carter – Beat
Originally released as a cassette on TG’s Industrial Records label, Carter’s first solo album, The Space Between, included this excellent track.
5. Carter Tutti – Retrodect
The original version was released as a bonus track on the US version of the “Synaesthesia” single and the cassette edition. This take was included on the Carter Tutti Play Chris & Cosey album, released in 2016. One of the features of Chris & Cosey’s work has been the enthusiasm with which they return to their own material to dissect and rearrange it into new creations.
4. Erasure – Reason (Carter Tutti Remix)
Carter’s touch is sought after by electronic music artists for a twist on commerciality. Carter Tutti have done two remixes for Mute stalwarts, Erasure – the other being a take on “SOS” for the latter’s album, ABBA-esque.
3. Carter Tutti Void – V2
The Short Circuit Festival in 2011, celebrating Mute, provided the setting for a live collaboration between Carter Tutti and Nik Colk Void. The recordings were issued the following year as Transverse. Carter oversaw the technical side of the show, which maintained a balance between the three artists on a knife-edge.
2. Ian Boddy & Chris Carter – Caged
In 2000, Carter worked with British synthesist, Ian Boddy, on a set of songs that were cast as “proto-dub.” The album is being reissused by Mute imprint, The Grey Area, in a 25th anniversary edition with additiomal material.
1. Chris Carter – Moonlight
The romantic side of Carter’s work is essential to its force. Is it linked to his admiration for ABBA? Hard to tell, but Benny and Björn never got sounds from their synths like this.
We first saw CTV at the Mute Short Circuit Festival in 2011 (Ed: There we are, in Chris’ stage picture). Pity the sorry souls who couldn’t get into the room to watch the recording of the first CTV collaboration because they were too busy trying to track down members of Depeche Mode; but at least they could buy Transverse as a document of what they missed.
Cosey Fanni Tutti started life with an ordinary name, was raised in an ordinary town, and had an ordinary (which is to say, dysfunctional) family life. By the time Christine Newby left her parents’ home in Hull, she was ready to recreate herself as a very special artist.
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There are, in this world, a lot of dicks who steal instruments from musicians. It’s happened to most artists at some point – gear left in vans can disappear with the vehicle, but even keyboards left on stage can vanish in the dark of a concert venue.
Robert Rental was one of those quiet souls who made big noises. When he toured with The Normal, at the end of the 1970s, he made such a racket that it was impossible to tell what he was shouting over the industrial maelstrom the two created.
John Fryer’s Black Needle Noise project is the spiritual successor to This Mortal Coil, and each release reveals a little more of the DNA that spawned that legendary enterprise.
Tomaga is an experimental project, but it yields excellent results.
Psyche and No More are two of the most influential dark wave acts, and putting them together for a collaboration was a great idea.
Dubstar‘s dreampop had an obvious home in the 1990s. It was as English as a cucumber sandwich eaten on a lay-by in the rain on a trip with your parents, but it was also subversive. They made pencil cases do things.
What started as a collaboration for a (still forthcoming) album of Fad Gadget songs led Jean-Marc Lederman (The Weathermen, Kid Montana) and Jean-Luc De Meyer (Front 242) to work together for a full album of Eleven Grinding Songs.
Iceland’s best dance music export, Gus Gus, returned with an excellent album in 2018. By now, the template of modular synths, effects units and dynamic vocals is easily recognisable, but they still haven’t exhausted its possibilities.
Sweden’s famous Romo Night might not be with us, but it lives on through Romo Records.
Sweden has produced its shared of EBM bands over the years. There must be something in the Viking blood that draws them to 16-step sequencers and electronic drum pads.
It has been more than thirty years since the Gristle ceased to throb, but Chris Carter continues to plow a unique furrow of experimental electronics. The creator of some of the most romantic electronic music of all time, Carter remains an industrial original.
A surprise on its release, Zanti‘s first album is elegant and deep. Made by the duo of Anni Hogan and Simple Minds’ bass man, Derek Forbes, it more than made up for a year of half-hearted releases and Soundcloud flotsam elsewhere.
The best album in years from one of Europe’s go-to party bands, Destination Amour built on a combination of space disco and Europop influences. “Toute la nuit” buzzed with killer saws, Els Pyloo’s ethereal vocals and a pulsing rhythm section lifted straight from 1977.
The really mad thing about Robert Görl is his ability to wrestle emotion from synthesizers. Although best known for his heavy rhythm work in DAF, an early solo single, “Mit Dir,” demonstrated that with a limited set of equipment (and a limited number of words) he could produce works of fragile and enduring beauty.
Sweden’s original poptronica act came to London to show off their new material in October. Page brought with them a very limited run of CDs featuring versions of some of the songs on their Start EP, and the first forty people through the door at their show received a copy courtesy of Cold War Night Life. Needless to say, their appearance at the sold out show was warmly received by an international crowd, and the CDs quickly became collector’s items.
Chris Carter has been called a “wrecker of civilisation,” but he is also responsible for some of the most romantic electronic music ever made.