Push and Mark, the editors of Electronic Sound magazine suggest reading the latest issue sitting outside with a cup of tea and that's exactly what I did earlier, with the morning sunshine bouncing off the magazine's customary expanses of white space. The lead feature in this month's issue is David Stubbs' interview with Chris Carter and Cosey Fanni Tutti as they reflect on the music they produced as Chris and Cosey. This piece works well as a sort of prequel to the Carter Tutti feature in the March 2015 issue of The Wire. It's good to be reminded of the couple's post-TG albums, 1981's Heartbeat and the follow-up Trance (1982), both retain traces of TG DNA in Chris' rhythms and Cosey's cornet playing. In some respects the music became less interesting as the 80's wore on but albums like 1985's Techno Primitiv and 1987's Exotika have their moments. Perhaps their most widely heard track, the 1983 single October (Love Song), a lovely electro-pop confection ought to have been a sure fire hit but wasn't, such are the mysterious ways songs catch fire with the record-buying public, or don't in this case, but Chris and Cosey to my mind have achieved a level of success far beyond record sales. As they explain to David Stubbs, as early as 1981, they were offered to join Grace Jones on a world tour, and there were invitations from Depeche Mode and Blancmange, all of which were turned down so they could concentrate on their music and raise their son outside the glare of the limelight. Cosey's health problems in the late 80's notwithstanding, the duo managed to weather their four decade long partnership with little turbulence - there were none of the chemical burnouts that Coil suffered or the kind of disquieting antics that supposedly went on within Psychic TV. Closing out the feature is handy little primer on Chris and Cosey's albums which are now long out of print on CD. Perhaps Mute might consider a series of re-issues at some point.
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