Cosey Fanni Tutti - 2t2 (2025)

 

Here's another Cosey solo, not radically different to Tutti but representing further goodness mined from the same seam; although it brings new realisations, namely that on reflection I think I prefer her solo work to anything recorded with him indoors, or even with that other group. I'm not even sure why this should be, for clearly it's a relative. Another realisation is that both 2t2 and its predecessor seem sonically closer to the very first Chris & Cosey outings than to the later, which may be to do with either a reinvestment in gritty analogue sounds or the renewed spirit of adventure which comes with endeavours beyond a familiar configuration of people. A lot of it chugs along at some halfway point between Gristle and Moroder, as much a bubbling bass as a rhythm. With Wrangler and countless others, the last decade or so has seen a revival in what I'd hesitate to call sounds of the seventies, harking back to those early experiments with plug-in synths grinding away, and so it is with Cosey's work. In most cases, and certainly this one, it doesn't strike me as an exercise in nostalgia so much as a reflection of changing music technology thankfully losing its fixation with the new, instead favouring variety and malleability in terms of sound design.

Anyway, while solo Cosey makes great use of rhythm, it's a different emphasis to that favoured by hubby and is more exploratory, hence the continued delight in things which make a noise for their own sake - the cornet and even a harmonica on this album. I gather these pieces were composed for some kind of installation, which I can see given that they have the quality of soundtrack, a certain cinematic scale wherein even the atonal elements gain musicality by contrast with adjacent sounds. It suggests improvisation and random juxtaposition but for the fact that everything works and complements the whole, so maybe there's an element of selection. Whatever the case may be, it's at least as powerful as weather in its emotional impact - an album in which to lose yourself.

M - New York, London, Paris, Munich (1979)

As with many of my generation, I was completely hypnotised by Pop Muzik, albeit not enough as to have me rushing out to buy the album. I made a mental note to do so once I heard Moonlight and Muzak, the follow up single which seemed to suggest the possibility of quality. Finally getting around to ticking that box more than forty years later, I'm surprised to find that the record is weirder than I expected and doesn't exactly contain songs in the traditional sense. More surprising, at least to me, is that on the strength of this, M seemed to foreshadow both Heaven 17 and Yello, sort of. On the one hand we have what is essentially disco draped with the trappings of Motown-inspired hit factories, boogie with a suitcase, casinos and international playboys; and regardless of ostentatiously fancy song structure, Robin Scott vocalises, performs, and narrates rather than sings and is something like the disco equivalent of a hype man, which is where the Dieter Meier comparison comes in.

This adds up to something which combines the influence of pop art with a touch of Bryan Ferry, Bond movies, and Giorgio Moroder, resulting in what are mostly pieces of music with vocals rather than songs; and very expensive sounding pieces of music built with a  perfectionist drive for whatever was deemed state of the art at the time. We're building songs on melodies which border on pub rock but using sequencers and Brigit Novik's surreally flawless vocal harmonies, arriving at something so removed from the organics of its origin that it hints at a sort of Ballardian sterility; or, if you prefer, it's so squeaky clean that it's weird. Because even the occasional synthesiser pulse has been custom fit by the finest tailors, New York, London, Paris, Munich has somehow avoided dating, or at least hasn't dated as the usual retrofuturism. It's a novelty record, and entirely self-aware, which is its strength.