Electronic Sound Magazine Issue 76 Back Issue

When Throbbing Gristle split up in 1981, it was a kind of mirroring of the schism that had happened in The Human League the previous year. The Human League cell division gave us two bands, a revamped version of the original and Heaven 17. With Throbbing Gristle splintering (they made the announcement by sending postcards to the TG mailing list with the typically abrupt and disquieting message “mission is terminated”), we got Psychic TV and Chris & Cosey.
What a revelation Chris Carter and Cosey Fanni Tutti turned out to be. Having escaped the austere and relentlessly dark skies of the Death Factory, the duo embarked on a series of works that felt more like celebrations of love and life. Their instinctively experimental and underground nature remained intact, but now it was in service to a sense of freedom and joy.
Cosey later said TG had broken up “because me and Gen broke up”, and the fact that Chris and Cosey were now a couple was central to everything they did. It still is. In the 40 years since they started working together as Chris & Cosey, the pair have released a couple of dozen albums under their various guises, as well as numerous solo works. Their industriousness and devotion to their art and to each other over the course of four decades is certainly a cause for celebration, as we’re sure you’ll agree.
Elsewhere in this issue, we have a great piece about Alan Vega’s ’Mutator’, a long-lost solo album by the Suicide frontman, and we interview Depeche Mode song machine Martin Gore as he releases a new solo EP about monkeys (with artwork by an actual monkey). We also talk to Gazelle Twin, Rusty Egan, Leon Vynehall, Spöön Fazer, The RAH Band and Jenny Hval. And when you’ve spent some quality time with those, our monster album section awaits, absolutely stuffed with fine wallet-emptying suggestions for your listening pleasure.