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.
With its grid of video monitors on the cover, Elemental 7 is instantly recognisable as the soundtrack for the film by John Lacy and CTI. It was originally released on the Doublevision, the label set up by Cabaret Voltaire. Truth be told, the visuals were of their time, but the extraordinary soundtrack had more life on the LP. “Dancing Ghosts” is particularly notable for its combination of the Roland TB303 bass sequencer and TR808 drum machine in combination – one of the first tracks to use the gear and one of Chris & Cosey’s best loved songs.
Muzik Fantastique! is an extraordinary album. First released in 1992, it put to shame the acid house pretenders of the day with their newly discovered synth tools. The lead track, “Fantastique,” features one of Cosey’s most iconic vocal performances, while Chris Carter’s instrumentation is in top form. Songs like “Afrakira” and “Apocalypso” venture into world music, while sounding innovative throughout.
The last release in this series, Feral Vapours of the Silver Ether, was the second studio album by Carter Tutti, the act that followed Chris & Cosey. The Carter Tutti material is typically more ambient and down-tempo, compared to the duo’s previous work, and Feral Vapours… marks a step change from the other two albums being pressed by CTI. Not previously available on vinyl, it weaves filigree electro-acoustic sounds with thoroughly sensitive – organic – compositions.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
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.
Chris Carter has been called a “wrecker of civilisation,” but he is also responsible for some of the most romantic electronic music ever made.
What abuse has not been hurled at Throbbing Gristle and its members? The legendary godparents of industrial music have been called “wreckers of civilisation” in Hansard, declared “vile” by the red topped British press and physically attacked by audiences.
Fast forward to the last months of 2016 and here is Cosey in the refined space of a modern art gallery: bespectacled, sensibly dressed and surrounded by clippings from her short career as a sex worker. She’s here to read from her forthcoming book, Art Sex Music. Pictures last as long as they can be reproduced, but memories fade more quickly; so all of the audience’s attention is on Cosey as a storyteller, instead of the exposed and manipulated mammaries displayed on the walls.