Time for a Cosey chat
From her work with infamous anarchic collective Throbbing Gristle to collaborations with partner Chris Carter and books on electronic music legend Delia Derbyshire, Cosey Fanni Tutti’s existence has long been committed to creativity. Since the 70s, these sonic transmissions have been more than a career, akin to an integral way of being.
“I don’t know any other way of living,” she says. “If you start off with this goal of wanting to be famous and make money, it can be short lived. Being creative, where making music and art is literally your life, is different. If you want to do it, then you have to have the discipline, belief and the dedication to it too.”
New album 2t2 is the latest embodiment of this aesthetic – a nine-track melting pot of innovation and forward-thinking experimentation. Her first solo album, ‘Time To Tell’, was released in 1983, then followed by 2019’s ‘Tutti’ and 2022’s ‘Delia Derbyshire: The Myths and the Legendary Tapes’. Her debut book, the Penderyn Music Book Prize shortlisted ‘Art Sex Music’, was published in 2017, followed by ‘RE-SISTERS’ in 2022. There’s been no sense of slowing down with ideas behind this new record fired up by previous work
“I can’t pin the album’s start to one thing, I was trying to figure out the sounds and ideas I had left over from other projects I’d done, particularly when I did the Delia soundtrack,” she says. “There is always something that I make that doesn’t fit but I never throw sounds away ever – they’ve turned up for some reason so they’re there for something else.”
Cosey lives with her partner and co-creator Chris out in Norfolk, somewhere removed from the gritty world Throbbing Gristle was first born into, kicking and screaming during the late seventies, first in Hull, then Hackney. Their base – the so-called Death Factory – was a hub a long time before flat whites, handlebar moustaches and the rise of the East end hipster. London Fields is indicative of the wave of gentrification that has swept through the capital and beyond.
“There are a lot of places that started off cheap, where artists and musicians were able to get in there and do their thing, then estate agents and property developers have arrived with no care for anything other than making money,” she says.
“It’s why we moved out of London because financially we were running to stand still with all the bills. That’s why we left, also with our son, we wanted him to grow up in the countryside.”
As a result of heading to a more rural landscape, the duo have a dedicated space for their music where both Cosey and Chris record, experiment and come up with new ideas. Often, Cosey’s process begins with samples, then she manipulates different pieces of hardware to bring ideas to life.
“I basically start with sampling, using different hardware, then go from there and straight into Ableton,” she states. “I work with each sample and pick them to pieces, then think about how they would sound when slowed down or pitched up.”
“One sample can give me six different pieces that I might want to work with,” Cosey continues. “But these sounds are usually initiated when I have a project, album, track or remix that I want to do. I’m not the kind of producer who collects samples in case something leads to something.”
Coming from an era where recordings were initially made on tape, the landscape surrounding music and making has obviously radically shifted. Chris is hungry for technology and will share ideas and innovations with Cosey to inform her own music making.
“There have been big changes in tech, I wouldn’t say it was better now but it is very different,” she says. “You have far more options which can be an obstacle at times if I’m honest.”
“I’m more hands on than using software all the time – I don’t do that, I prefer hardware, then going into Logic and tweaking sounds that way. With this album, Chris bought me this synth as a Christmas present, this SoMa Terra synth with touch sensitive pads and metal discs – a hell of a lot of my samples came from there.”
Cosey’s process in the studio is to work as quickly as possible to capture energy and preserve the immediacy of an initial idea. Strands from her previous work surrounding Delia Derbyshire have found their way into 2t2, with Delia’s late artist friend Andy Christian a sounding board of inspiration. He was a character who Cosey discovered when researching ‘RE-SISTERS’, a fellow creative who had been with Delia during the time she spent in Cumbria.
“It was a really important time for her and something no one seemed to know about,” says Cosey. “When I was researching, I found this article and at the bottom it gave credit to Andy Christian. I looked him up, found an email and messaged him and started this conversation over email about her. It was wonderful, I learned so much about him and her time in Cumbria.”
“Delia used to go and see him in the evenings, they would sit, listen to music, have a drink and talk,” she continues. “He showed her these particular drawings, she read them as a film score where she intoned and sang softly to them. Andy gave me permission to take them forward on my album.”
The world around Cosey is a key source of inspiration and with the political turbulence and violence of recent years, there’s been no shortage of events and upset to respond to.
“I’m not a traditional musician – I don’t sit down and think I’m going to write a song about this,” she says. “But communicating with people about what is happening, this has always been important.”
“In the Throbbing Gristle days, we had the phrase – ‘the world is a war film’ – and that’s exactly what you get on the TV and internet, it’s horrendous and not something you can avoid.”
Alongside conflict, artificial intelligence and new technologies are trending forces that musicians and creatives can ill-afford to avoid. Cosey is an advocate for tech to be used as a positive force for good but is all too aware of how money often talks. AI’s impact on the creative process is also a cause for concern too.
“I’m against the taking of people’s work, then using it and exploiting it,” she says. “Where will the ideas come from in the future? AI will start learning and taking AI ideas? It will just dilute everything down and to what? Music and creativity is about human expression and feelings – and suddenly you’re taking it into a whole other world that has nothing to do with this.”
While technological changes and war defines our times, Coset and Chris have lived through different musical ages and revolutions. Their work both as a duo, as solo artists and with Throbbing Gristle stands ahead of the wave of acid house that hit the UK at the end of the eighties. As far as Cosey, it had no impact or influence on them.
“We did what became acid house, the 303 bassline, we bought it when it came out in ‘81 and released a track in ‘82 which predated what became acid house – and by that time, we’d moved on to something else,” she laughs. “The only thing that got me about acid house and the raves was that I wish I’d been able to go along to them – but I had a heart condition diagnosed so I couldn’t do it – which really frustrated me as there was nothing I would have loved more.”
Another idiosyncratic moment in her musical life is appearing in the video to disco star Sylvester’s ‘You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)’, a seemingly incongruous cultural space for Cosey to be found in.
“Strangely enough it came via a booking at my stripping agency that I worked for,” she says. “I’m not sure how Sylvester’s team and my stripping agency got together – but that’s how it came about. I did lots of weird things like this, you’d often wonder how it came about. You had no idea. But you’d go along, it’d be exciting.”
This is all part of a life dedicated to creativity, something that has been remarkable in her ambitions to sustain it. She’s aware of how challenging it can be for emerging artists and is grateful for the rest of her year being full of more projects from 2T2 to film work and exhibitions.
“It’s so hard now to be creative, because of the situation – at least I was able to live in squats and get cheap properties, do studio work or do videos – there were more opportunities then than now,” she says.
“But, there’s no disgrace in making enough money to pay the rent, I’ve had to do that in the past as well – it just freed me up with what I have to do, it provided me with the money and security that I need to get on with that. You have to stick at it and find a way forward.”
Jim Ottewill
Pre-order your white vinyl copy of 2t2, out on June 13, by clicking here
Pre-order your CD copy of 2t2, out on June 13, by clicking here
