Wow. This was one of my favourite recordings of 2015, and yet I only became aware of its existence as 2015 clocked into 2016. So here is a belated appraisal of one of that year's finest releases. Carter Tutti Void, as you may or may not know, is Chris & Cosey (AKA Cosey Fanni Tutti and Chris Carter, ex-Throbbing Gristle... I don't really need to spell this all out, do I?) and Nik Void from the UK post-punkish outfit, Factory Floor. FF were the talk of the town a few years back in Ol' Blighty, but despite this predicament, they're an outfit worth hearing a few times in your life, as they emanate quite a tasty brew of noisy electro-spuzz which sounds like equal parts Rough Trade post-punk, minimal wave and industrial spew like the last 35 years of life on earth never happened. You know what I mean.
Which I guess means he's a perfect collaborator for Chris & Cosey. Throbbing Gristle - let it be put on the national record - were one neat outfit. Conceptually, they were quite brilliant. Musically, I wouldn't accuse them of delivering quite so high as the concept itself (this concept, and I really can't and won't speak for the band, I guess revolves around being offensive and noisy in a non-rock yet constructive way, if I may dumb it down to a simple sentence), but I can listen to LPs such as DOA: Third And Fimal Report, Heathen Earth and 20 Jazz Funk Greats at just about any point in my life and receive great enjoyment from their contents.
For me, however, it's the post-TG projects which bore greater fruit: Chris & Cosey's Trance LP from 1982 is an effin' masterpiece; Psychic TV's career has been epic, prolific and uneven (life is like that when you release albums like most people have hot meals: often), but has created a number of real gems (Force The Hand Of Chance and Dreams Less Sweet are quite excellent, and I'm partial to Genesis's late '80s period when his Brian Jones obsession was coming to fruition; Allegory And Self from 1988 is awesome); and Coil had a number of discs I'll stake my life on (Musick To Play In The Dark, volumes 1 and 2, Ape Of Naples, Astral Disaster, etc.). That is quite the diaspora. TG were clearly onto something.
And then there's Carter Tutti Void's f(x) LP, which sees the three members engaging in a kind of minimal industrial techno, if you will. It's a perfect combination of deep, submersive rhythms with a dark industrial sheen. No song outstays its welcome, not a bum note is hit. It's perfect enough that I wish it was a double album. There are no vocals and the sound and style varies little throughout. I love this sound when it's done well, and I can't think of a better example of - dare I say: experimental electronic music - than f(x) done in recent years.
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