Chris & Cosey - Biography
Chris & Cosey is the London electronic/dance duo of Chris Carter and Cosey Fanni Tutti, who make up one half of Throbbing Gristle. When Throbbing Gristle broke up in 1981, its four members immediately initiated other projects. Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson joined Coil after a couple years in Genesis P-Orridge’s new group, Psychic TV, while Cosey Fanni Tutti and Chris Carter signed to Rough Trade and began recording as Chris & Cosey, releasing the albums Heartbeat (1981 Rough Trade), Trance (1982 Rough Trade), and Songs of Love & Lust (1984 Rough Trade). The Conspiracy International One EP (CTI 1984), Chris & Cosey’s collaboration with Glenn Wallis (a/k/a Konstruktivist), was the first release on Chris & Cosey’s own Conspiracy International label, or CTI for short. C&C collaborated with the pioneering electronic artist Lustmord on Conspiracy International Two (1985 CTI).
Wrapping up their relationship with Rough Trade, Chris and Cosey released their fourth album Technø Primitiv (1985 Rough Trade) and collaborated with the (uncredited) Eurythmics on the Sweet Surprise 12-inch (1985 Rough Trade). Video artists Jan Smith-Merritt and Stephen Hill commissioned music from Chris & Cosey for a 1985 exhibition, released on the C&C album Allotropy (1987 Staalplaat). Nettwerk, whose roster included later industrial bands such as Skinny Puppy and Severed Heads, picked up Chris & Cosey’s fifth album, Exotica (1987 Nettwerk) and their next, Core (1988 Nettwerk), a collection of collaborations with other artists. Some of these, such as Coil, Monte Cazazza and Boyd Rice, had been directly related to Throbbing Gristle; others, such as Lustmord (a/k/a Brian Williams, once of SPK), Joe Potts and John Duncan (both affiliated with the LA Free Music Society), were like-minded contemporaries of TG; and then there was Robert Wyatt.
After Trust (1989 Nettwerk), Chris & Cosey signed to the Chicago industrial label Wax Trax! Reflection (1990 Wax Trax!) was a best-of compilation representing Chris & Cosey’s first four albums, followed by their seventh album Pagan Tango (1991 Wax Trax!). Both Carter and Tutti worked on solo material, and they only released two more studio albums as a duo that decade: Muzik Fantastique! (1993 Play It Again Sam) and Skimble Skamble (1996 CTI). Two live albums followed: Union (1999 CTI) and C&C Luchtbal (2003 CTI). Throbbing Gristle reunited in 2003, around which time C&C initiated the new project Carter Tutti, whose albums to date are Cabal (2004 CTI) and Feral Vapours of the Silver Ether (2007 CTI).
