Art Sex Music

by Cosey Fanni Tutti

  Gen had emailed Cargo to reassure them that, despite him quitting TG, he would fully support the deal with press and PR. We felt that our working relationship with Gen was no longer tenable. Even so, we involved him, but through Paul. The format for the TG packaging was agreed, including an eight-page colour booklet of unpublished photos, TG interviews, reviews and ephemera relating to each album, all taken from my and Chris’s archive. We’d asked Gen to contribute to the booklet and he’d offered material, but we received nothing. The albums were finally released at the end of October and got fantastic reviews.

  9 October 2011

  Far too much going on here that I’ve had to retreat to remain sane and healthy. The memorial for Sleazy has proved far more emotional than expected having been in contact with his brother and sister. Coil world is a tangled web as expected.

  We talked mostly with Paul about the best way to make Sleazy’s memorial a celebration and the happiest of gatherings, as far as possible, considering the sadness and everyone’s sensitivities. Sleazy had led a compartmentalised life and kept his different worlds separate. We decided that all his family and his collaborators in music and film should be brought together, much as that would have freaked him out.

  The memorial took place at the Horse Hospital in Bloomsbury, London, founded by Roger Burton – a most befitting and intimate venue as it had historic links with ‘the underground’, be it film, readings, writing, art or fashion. Me and Chris arrived in London mid-afternoon and made our way to a pub close by the Horse Hospital. We were meeting Paul, Susan and Terry to set up the space in time for everyone arriving at 7 p.m.

  One of Sleazy’s close friends, Jenks, had recently got in touch with us. He was from Manchester, a fellow plain-speaking Northerner. Meeting him for the first time brought me and Chris some comfort and peace as he told us first-hand what had happened to Sleazy. I felt at ease with him. He joined us all as we prepared the room, placing the photo books I’d made on a long table, hanging strings of blue, white, red, green and yellow Tibetan Buddhist prayer flags. The photos were also projected on to a large screen so Sleazy was there for us as a constant visual presence. To one side of the screen, Paul and Susan had set a small table with a large photo of Sleazy, a candle and two vases of flowers.

  We knew it would be an emotional day as we hadn’t seen some of our friends since that fateful event. There were lots of tears but also so many smiling faces as everyone recounted their often hilarious and crazy Sleazy experiences to one another, to the accompaniment of Sleazy’s iPod music library – which included the usual suspects and some not so usual, like ‘It’s Raining Men’ by the Weather Girls. It was heartwarming to see his sister and brothers, who were sat with one of the books, going through the photos one by one, piecing together the parts of Sleazy’s life they hadn’t known about. It was clear that they all adored him, so anyone who had suggested he was ostracised from his family and doubted my inviting them had been totally wrong. For one thing, had his sister Anne not come along, we would never have known the extraordinary revelation that she had lived next door to Susan in Buffalo and bought some of Susan’s music books from her mother when Susan moved to the UK. They were both astounded at that coincidence. Meeting his family and other friends of Sleazy’s filled in so many gaps for me and Chris too. No matter what had transpired concerning Sleazy’s affairs since his death, I wanted them to suspend their differences for those few hours.

  I took the prayer flags home and hung them in our garden to blow in the Norfolk winds, as a symbol of Sleazy’s passing, peace and harmony.

  12 February 2012

  We’re gradually working our way through the TG ‘Desertshore’ recording. Only a quarter way into it and wondering what reception we are condemned to receive for our efforts. One day we don’t give a damn what people say and the next we wonder if we’re wasting our time, ideas and energies. I guess we’re ultimately driven by our obligation to Sleazy to fulfil this project for him. Be good to finally push the TG boat out to sea from the ‘Desertshore’ and wave a final farewell.

  The Desertshore project conceived by Sleazy was unfinished when he died. With Gen having walked out, and then losing Sleazy, TG in its original form was no more and we felt that it would be a fitting memorial to Sleazy to complete his project and release it on Industrial Records as the final Throbbing Gristle album. Me and Chris made a commitment to that end – we’d had numerous email and Skype conversations with Sleazy about how it would finally sound so we could carry on from where he left off, using his files and remaining true to how he had envisaged it. That caused us problems because Sleazy had moved a long way from the ICA recordings and was no longer using the backing tracks from those sessions. He’d always regarded them as a reference and he was about to start recording guest vocalists, as he had originally intended back in 2006. He wasn’t going to use any of Gen’s vocals – they were to be consigned to history, or, as he said, ‘I’m not having that cunt anywhere near Desertshore.’

  Knowing how Gen wanted his vocals included on the album, me and Chris were in a difficult position, torn between realising Sleazy’s last work as he had wanted it and Gen’s feelings at not being on it. Gen wanted to work with us on Desertshore but we no longer felt a creative relationship with him was possible, especially as we were still trying to resolve outstanding issues from him quitting. But we were willing to finish the project, especially as Sleazy had always intended that Chris do the final production on it for him.

  We were given an ultimatum by Gen: he said that if his ICA vocals weren’t on the album, we couldn’t release it using the name Throbbing Gristle. Desertshore discussions turned into being all about his vocals and my and Chris’s right to use the name of TG, and not about the most important thing of all – that Desertshore was a memorial work to Sleazy. We wanted to honour Sleazy’s wishes but it looked like we’d have to make compromises and so proposed that we work some of Gen’s vocals from the ICA into one or more of the songs alongside the guest vocalists.

  Gen didn’t like that idea and said that, if we removed his voice, altered the music without his consent, or if we used other vocalists, we couldn’t release it as a TG record. He was fixated on the ICA version of Desertshore, wrongly thinking that we were reworking those recordings, and seemed convinced we were plotting to exclude him from the final album. We weren’t. Sleazy already had. The ICA version was a completely separate piece to what Sleazy had worked towards and wanted as the final release. Gen wasn’t on any of Sleazy’s latest Desertshore audio files, which we were working from, so we couldn’t ‘remove’ his voice or music – simply because they weren’t even there to remove.

  We were getting nowhere and the deadline for delivering parts was looming, so as Gen wouldn’t agree to us including him in a way that suited the project we made a last-ditch attempt to use the TG name for Sleazy. We offered Gen royalties, even though he wasn’t on the record. He was immovable. It was his presence on the album or nothing.

  We could have gone ahead and used the name Throbbing Gristle – to all intents and purposes we were the only remaining members and had the required majority vote – but that would have caused havoc and tainted what was supposed to be a tender, loving gesture to our dearest friend. To prevent more stress and arguments, and to avoid submitting to Gen changing Sleazy’s wishes, we decided to release Desertshore as X-TG. After all, that was more reflective of the reality of the TG situation at its end, and we could keep Desertshore as the work Sleazy had wanted it to be.

  Throughout 2011, me and Chris had spent much of our spare time compiling all the audio parts and recording the guest vocalists from Sleazy’s list, ready for mixing and mastering Desertshore. We had to make sense of his idiosyncratic electronic filing system, which took a while, as did learning to use some of the equipment he’d bought specifically for the album. I’d already recorded and sent Sleazy my vocals for ‘All That Is My Own’ and ‘My Only Child’, so our next step was to approach the guest vocalists, Blixa Bargeld,
Antony (Anohni), Sasha Grey, Marc Almond and Gaspar Noé. Everyone graciously agreed to contribute without hesitation. Blixa recorded his vocals in Germany as we liaised via phone throughout the day. He was incredibly generous and recorded amazing vocals for all the tracks bar ‘Le Petit Chevalier’, gallantly apologising that he didn’t consider his French good enough.

  Gaspar had agreed to do the French vocals for ‘Le Petit Chevalier’. He was the only guest vocalist who came to our studio to record, the only one who had never sung before, and it was to be the first time we’d all met. We only knew him through emailing and from him using our music in his films. Having seen his work, we wondered what he’d be like. Maybe he thought the same about us because of our history. We picked him up from the train station in our car and by the time we got to our house we were talking about everything from conspiracy theories to sex and beyond. When it came to recording he was a little nervous, but we looked on him not having sung before as a plus. He could do whatever he wanted and he had a great low, gravelly voice that suited the nuances of the French language so well, and was the opposite of Ari’s ten-year-old little-boy voice on Nico’s original version of the track.

  We got all the great material we needed surprisingly quickly and had a relaxed and great day together into the bargain. Sasha lived in LA, so recorded her vocals to ‘Afraid’ to a guide track we gave her and sent us a heartfelt vocal interpretation that was so different from everything else we’d received so far and reflected the sparse arrangement we had in place. Anohni’s vocals for ‘Janitor of Lunacy’ were incredibly beautiful and sent shivers down our spines when we heard them. They were so inspiring that they took the final track in a different direction entirely. The same happened with Marc’s vocals on ‘The Falconer’, which were heart-wrenchingly emotional, and he’d also given us extra harmonies and vocal parts to work with.

  The last track on the album was to be ‘Desertshores’, a spoken farewell from Sleazy’s close friends, saying to him, ‘Meet me on the desertshore.’

  Everyone had been so kind, obliging and supportive. The final arrangements and mixing of each track took a shockingly short time. It was as if we were conduits for some unseen force channelling ideas for marrying sounds with emotions, as if magic were involved. We’d look at one another, big smiles on our faces and wide-eyed in amazement that it was finding its form so readily – as if it was meant to be.

  *

  Mute had recorded the Carter Tutti Void performance at the Roundhouse using a high-end mobile recording studio. The quality and sound were superb and there were immediate calls for us to release it. With so much else going on, we decided to put it out on Mute and had OK’d the test pressings, having delivered audio masters and artworks back in December. The title was Transverse – as in the interaction of both the sounds cutting across one another and Nik cutting across the bow of Carter Tutti.

  We all wanted the cover to be entirely different from what any of us had done before and had exchanged ideas as we each travelled between our separate gigs. I liked the idea of the cover representing indefinability: it fitted the concept of the live performance but I also thought it would be good to have something that ‘moved’ amid the other CDs and vinyl albums in the racks. We chose a black-and-white graphic that created the optical illusion of the cover being three-dimensional and appearing to move.

  We’d done interviews to help promote the album and the reviews were starting to appear, and they just kept on coming. I’ve never been one to bother about reviews, but the sheer number was staggering, as was the positive consensus. Booking enquiries started coming in for CTV to perform. We’d all been caught unawares by the reaction, just as me and Chris had been by the revisiting of Chris & Cosey.

  7 April 2012

  The day went so well. Such a joyous relaxed atmosphere. Informal after wedding gathering at a nearby bar/restaurant was just such fun. So many of Nick’s friends came along and that really really made me happy to see and hear the genuine love and affection they had for each other.

  The party of sixty family and friends gathered at Islington Town Hall, London, for Nick and Tatis’s wedding. It was a sunny day, if a bit blustery, and we waited for Tatis to arrive. She looked beautiful in an elegant, tailored, ivory-coloured, below-knee-length dress, looking worried as she was a bit late. Nick was in a cobalt-blue suit, as Tatis’s traditional ‘something blue’. They both looked stunning and glowed with happiness – even the ladies officiating the ceremony were cheery and happy.

  The reception as such was at a bistro bar called Browns, just around the corner but too long a walk in high heels. Me, Chris, Nick, Tatis and two of Nick’s friends piled into a black cab. ‘Browns, please.’ But we seemed to be going a long way round. ‘You’re going the wrong way, mate,’ Nick said.

  ‘Browns, right?’ the cabbie said.

  Then it clicked. He was taking us to Browns the lap-dancing club, which some wedding parties went on to after their ceremonies. I knew it as the Horns from my stripping days. Definitely not the place to go or be reminded of on Nick’s wedding day. We’d arranged a buffet and put a tab on the bar. Nick’s best man, Chesney, did the usual brief speech, which was humorously and boisterously shouted down after a few minutes. I noticed Tatis go outside to call her mother. Her family couldn’t travel from Colombia and I felt for her on such a special day.

  The wedding day had gone well – there’d been no drama to speak of. That was to happen two days later, when I broke my foot. This was now the fourth time I’d broken the same foot and it was certainly the most painful. Previous breaks, once in a cast and supported, were hardly troublesome as far as the level of pain was concerned. No one had told me I’d also damaged tendons, ligaments and muscles, which each brought their own separate long-term challenges as they healed.

  21 April 2012

  Today is the first day my broken foot feels any better. The swelling has gone down a bit and the throbbing too. I’ve felt quite ill with it – whether that’s shock to the system or not I don’t know but it really depressed me. That and being totally dependent on Chris. A single-storey dwelling is looking more and more attractive.

  A downstairs bathroom suddenly made an appearance at the top of our to-do list. This latest break had given us both a wake-up call about possible mobility problems in our older years. Neither of us liked the idea of going up and down the stairs on our backsides or installing a stairlift. We had images of it breaking down halfway, like in Phoenix Nights.

  The plastic cast the hospital gave me was a fantastic bit of kit. It had airbags that you inflated and deflated to adjust the support. Seeing as I was to be in it for up to twelve weeks, I bought another, shorter version to do the forthcoming French gig in. I’d broken my foot just in time to avoid the no-fly window. Lucky me. The gig could go ahead.

  My injury, though inconvenient and uncomfortable, paled into insignificance compared to what Xeni Jardin was going through. She’d been diagnosed with breast cancer and was undergoing chemotherapy treatment. I’d liked Xeni from our first meeting in LA for the TG interview with Boing Boing. She had a vibrancy and zest for life that was now being put to the worst test. We’d written to one another over the years and through Twitter – which was where she chose to document her experience. Our personal email exchanges were deeply moving. I offered what support I could from so far away. Out of the blue she sent me and Chris a recording of the chemo machine from her last session. She likened the machines to an eight-track tape recorder and was recording each chemo treatment as reference for writing about it later when her brain was less compromised by the drugs.

  The same day as Xeni’s email, I’d received one from the ICA inviting me to contribute a twenty-minute audio work for ‘Soundworks’, based on the theme of time and the immateriality of audio recordings, which was to tie in with the Bruce Nauman exhibition ‘Days’ – seven voices randomly reciting the days of the week.

  The installation was about the passing and measure of time, something that Xeni
was connecting with at such a deep level with her recordings of the chemo timeline, the repetitive rhythm of the machine as it fed her drip after drip of precise doses of toxic chemicals that caused a strange feeling, as if time were morphing. Xeni’s machine-noise recording had such depth – it held within it the potential for life, an extension of time, and the timing of the emails was too serendipitous to ignore. But I was sensitive to Xeni’s feelings. I wrote to her and explained my idea of creating a work based on her chemo-machine recording. I didn’t want to come across as intrusive. Xeni’s response was exceptional: she’d hoped I’d do something with the recording and embraced the prospect of creating a work from her ordeal. She sent me further recordings to work with and I also used the documentary photos she’d taken of herself, inputted into software to transform them into sound. My approach was to attempt to evoke the feelings she’d described to me of being submerged in another time zone.

  I sent the finished piece to Xeni. I was worried that it may depress her in some way, remind her of suffering the nausea and pain. She listened to it over and over and wrote to me to say that I’d captured the feeling so well and how happy she was that her intimate, painful experience had made its way into my art, become something beautiful and a source of strength for her. I felt privileged to have been able to bring some light to her darker days. The piece was called ‘Bioschismic’ and released to the world on the ICA website.

  4 October 2012

  TG business has been so bad that whenever I get a chance NOT to discuss it I take it … When you try and try to make things amicable for the sake of TG legacy and Sleazy’s memory and to no avail, it’s exhausting. Then you get slagged off on the internet and accused of things you haven’t done … this year has been mammoth crazy.