On hold...

Much on hold at the moment as our son Nick is still very poorly after a burst Appendix.
Regular updates will return after Xmas/New Year.
In the meantime here is a newly posted online interview with me | LINK |

Madrid was short but sweet

Our trip to Madrid was short but very sweet... The people at Experimenta Club were wonderfully friendly and helpful and very professional. The venue (a massive state of the art cultural centre!) was equally impressive and the only venue we've ever played with pink carpet, both on the stage AND throughout auditorium. Plus we sold it out, played a blinding set and went down a storm!

ExperimentaClub'06 photos can be seen here

Meanwhile back home: Well no matter how much you think you're on top of things there are always those unforeseen circumstances, random problems and plain old human errors lurking in the background just waiting to confound you and bite you on the arse. Yes of course I must be talking about TG and yes the release of long awaited TG DVD boxed set will be delayed, just a bit. But it'll be worth it AND it WILL be out before the (near legendary and even longer anticipated) Part Two album. Oh no don't get me started on that sore point again!........

TGV Mastering

Wow.!. I can hardly believe it but the audio mastering is finally completed for the new TG DVD live boxed set. Weeks of mixing (and what ultimately turned into a rescue job for some of the newer material) is now en route to Mr Christopherson, who is still beavering away on the final video edits and menus. But it's all looking and sounding glorious, I just wish it wasn't all so fucking time consuming! More TG news coming soon....

Taking a few days off now...

Busy, busy, busy...

I'm mixing and mastering the recent TG live performances in stereo and Dolby 5.1 for the new TG DVD boxed set. Sounds amazing but it's bloody intensive work!
I really, REALLY need a break after this but (and it's a big BUT) those CARTER TUTTI gigs are just around the corner and we need to start preps for them soon...

So onto other things

Well I'm sorry to say that the new (and still untitled) Carter Tutti album will definitely not be released this year, (2006, for any time travelers reading this). As I've said previously we had been making good progress with the album and it's sounding wonderful but what with one TG thing and an other it's just not going to be possible to get it finished anytime soon. This is an important project for us and not something we're going to rush so it will be released when we're happy with it, but just not for a while yet.

So onto other things...
We bought a nice new Toyota VersoTR a couple of weeks ago. Its our first new car in 7 years (well strictly speaking Cosey bought it, but we both drive it) although we've been so busy lately we've hardly used it yet. I finally got my faulty Korg Kaoss Pad 2 returned (after 3 months!), well it's a brand new one as Korg's shippers lost my original 'repaired' KP2. The weird thing is that the replacement sounds completely different to my original KP2, I guess it was a lot more faulty than I thought. Just as I was writing this I heard about the new Korg KP3, I've got to get hold of one of those for gigs and improv! I've also just bought myself a Monome 40h unit, originally just to experiment with and for some interactive looping fun alongside the Kaoss Pad2 but we've already used it on two tracks for the new Carter Tutti album. The funny thing was that unbeknown to me Sleazy also bought one at the same time too, synchronicty or what? If you use max/msp and don't flinch at dabbling with some pretty arcane application interfacing you should definitely consider trying one, they're great. You'll need to be quick though, only a few left and they're not going to make any more.

Slow but productive

Slow but productive... this would describe the current progress of our new (still untitled) Carter Tutti album. We were hoping to have it finished by September and in time for our upcoming performances, but this looks to be increasingly unlikely, in fact it would be a miracle!
And the reason? Well I put the blame squarely on TG shenanigans. This time last year we delayed starting the (long overdue) Carter Tutti album so myself, Cosey and Sleazy could complete the new TG 'Part Two' album. Which turned out to be an intense project and which the three of us put a lot of time and effort into. We were under pressure to deliver final production parts in time for a Decemeber 2005 release (in Berlin). And even when the three of us (and Mute) thought the album was finished, I had to spend another month rerecording parts and remastering the whole bloody thing a second time ('Part Two' couldn't be a more apt title!). And then to cap it all it didn't get released in 2005! In fact I doubt it will even get released in 2006, how ridiculous is that? So this whole sorry TG affair has whacked us with a double whammy... no new TG album and no new Carter Tutti album. That I might be feeling a little frustrated right now is an understatement!

And another thing...
I'm sick of wankers and nere-do-well's emailing me about the TG 24-track recorder. I've had time-wasters (many), fans using it as an excuse to find out where we live, cheapskates making laughable offers and lately Nigerian ("I'll pay you twice the asking price") scammers. To all of you: if you going to waste my time just FUCK OFF... because I won't be replying. If this carries on I'm going to donate it to a charity, seriously I am.

Update: the TG24-track is now OFF the market and no longer for sale.

Ken Russell was sweet

Spent the weekend in London: I went with Cosey to the Tate Britain symposium. Her 'Confessions' film was very well received: as usual, Ken Russell was sweet, and very eccentric. Later we met up with friends and Portion Control & Neon Judgement at the monthly Cosey Club all nighter. It was funny really... on the dance floor were all these industrial/gothy 'twenty-somethings' getting it on to classic 80s' & 90s' EBM tracks originally played by these middle aged musos (us included) backstage. With conversations about "aches, pains and ailments", "did you know so and so was dead" and "I'm not usually up this late" it was like a (slightly scary) 1980s' twighlight zone. We all had a bloody good time though!
If you live in (or near) London I highly recommend a trip to Richard Clouston's Cosey Club, fantastic atmosphere, amazing DJ sets and some inspired choices of bands. I've posted a few photos from the evening in my Flikr pages.

The new (as yet untitled) Carter Tutti album is coming along slowly but sounding wonderfull. We're toying with the idea of posting some mp3 'teaser clips' on the C&C site when we have some finished mixes. We'll see...

TG are selling the Throbbing Gristle 24-track HD recorder. It's only been used a couple of times but for various reasons it's now "surplus to our requirements".

Jolly jaunt

Just returned form our jolly jaunt to Italy during which we had a wonderful time in Venice and Pisa. Venice is an amazing city, plus we met up with some friends there which made our stay even more enjoyable... and the show completely sold out too! I have posted a few photos on my Flikr pages. The performances were very well received, even though we changed our Carter Tutti set slightly (from our previous LA 'quad' show) and decided to play it as an hour-long continuos set, without any breaks. Which was a bit of a gamble as it doesn't give the audience a chance to applaud between songs, but hey... we're not a rock n' roll band. Our 're-tweaked' video projections also got a very positive reaction and looked amazing. And yes... we will be releasing the visuals on DVD, hopefully this year.

Our CTI (Conspiracy International) back-catalogue has finally started to appear on iTunes and a few albums are now available to buy: click this C&C iTunes link. It's a vast catalogue of albums and we have no control in what order they appear but one of the first is a new Chris & Cosey compilation: COLLECTED WORKS 1981-2000, it features rare & hard to find C&C tracks from the last 19 years: full details are on the CarterTutti.com site. My own solo albums will also be available soon too. Click this link for what's currently available.

Traveling very, very light.

Started the month with flu and 'winter vomiting virus'... ugh!
But preps for our Italian shows are progressing well now. We've decided to go back to our 80s' gigging method of traveling very, very light. Which in this case means I'll be performing with just Ableton Live on a PowerBook, a small MIDI keyboard (Edirol PCR-M1) and a MIDI fader controller (Faderfox). While Cosey will be playing her cornet, harmonica, Baby Kay guitar (thru a Boss GT6) and vocalising through a processor (a Boss VF1).
For anyone who saw our shows in 2004/5 we are reworking/remixing those video projections (yet) again and they are looking incredible. The graphics are a mixture of real images and manipulated video and have an organic/fluid feel and complement the tracks really well (one five minute section alone took 30 hours to render!).

TG album release update:
OK... the release of the new TG album 'Part Two - Endless Not' is still delayed. But it seems the reasons why are not as clear cut as I thought. It's a long, boring story which basically boils down to a certain amount of confusion and miscommunication between TG members, TG management and Mute. No 'one' person or organisation is to blame and we are now all working towards getting a definitive 'official release date' that will be kept to. Don't shoot the messenger... and you can stop bombarding TG and Mute with emails now.

Coming along nicely

The new Carter Tutti album is coming along nicely and not really like nothing we've done before.
I've also just heard that the first part of our CTI download catalogue should be going online shortly.

A lot of (TG) distractions last year

After a lot of (TG) distractions last year our much delayed second Carter Tutti album is finally under way and sounding great. Cosey and I will also be performing two Carter Tutti concerts in Italy - on 31st March in Pisa and on 5th April in Venice. Cosey is also exhibiting at Tate Britain in London from March 2006.
As there are still some TG projects to be completed there won't be as many performances and new releases from Carter Tutti in 2006 as we would like. We just don't have the time this year. But we're thrilled that the majority of our extensive Chris & Cosey catalogue will finally be made available as online downloads throughout 2006.

TG in Berlin was amazing, but also exhausting, frustrating and bloody cold. The film premier, exhibition, rehearsals, performances and recording all went well, despite some sound gremlins at the first gig. The improvised second-nighter was a completely different affair and vibe. We played to a new 35mm print of Derek Jarman's 'In The Shadow of The Sun' and it looked wonderful projected behind us. We spent the second week recording new TG material at an old East Berlin radio studio. The studio was an incredible place and the staff and technicians were really helpful. So big thanks' to all those at Planet Roc who made our time there so relaxed and productive. The whole TG Berlin trip was extensively documented (on a daily basis, which was a slightly odd experience) so I expect we'll see a lot of photos from it later this year.