"There says Chris Carter of ere wasn’t a plan,” when he set about making ambient remixes of his own work almost 20 years ago. “It was a very experimental time. A ‘suck it and see’ scenario.”
Much of the experimental nature that went into Carter reworking his own solo album, along with toying around with the original loops and rhythms of Throbbing Gristle, was an overhaul of equipment. “I sold most of our ageing analogue synth and studio equipment,” he recalls. “I thought a fresh start with new gear would inspire us – which it did and it didn’t. Within weeks I regretted selling all those classic synths and drum machines, but moving over to recording on a computer was revelatory.”
However, an exercise in nostalgia was not the intention of such a project. “When dealing with full Throbbing Gristle songs [for reissues and remasters] it could get tedious after hearing them over and over for so many years,” he says. “But listening to the individual component parts is a very different experience, it shone a new light on them. It wasn’t meant to be nostalgic; it was transforming old material into new soundscapes. I wanted the albums to stand up on their own.”