Live Remix of TG's New Desertshore Album

9th JUNE: As part of the 'We Can Elude Control' event at De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill On Sea, Sussex, Chris Carter and Cosey Fanni Tutti will be performing a live remix of Throbbing Gristle's final studio album 'Desertshore'.

The album was instigated by, and is in memory of, the late Peter 'Sleazy' Christopherson (1955 - 2010) as a ‘cover’ album, and is inspired by Nico’s 1970 ‘Desertshore’ LP, originally the soundtrack to Phillip Garrel's mythopoetic film 'La Cicatrice Interieure' (The Inner Scar).

Please Note: This is a free event and tickets can not be booked in advance. Chris & Cosey will be performing at approx. 8pm. Further details here: www.dlwp.com

Live Premiere of TG's Desertshore Album at AV Festival

Wishful Thinking: In Remembrance of Peter Christopherson.

Sat 17th March 2012, 8pm–12am

Myself and Cosey Fanni Tutti will premiere a selection of live remixes from Throbbing Gristle’s nascent, and final, studio album: a cover of Nico's 1970 Desertshore LP.
This will be preceded by a rare screening of Philippe Garrel’s The Inner Scar film for which Desertshore was soundtrack and inspiration.

More details and ticket information is available here:
http://www.avfestival.co.uk

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A New Year… and the final TG album

The New Year dawns and it finds me and Cosey already in the studio since late December working on TG’s ‘final’ studio album ‘Desertshore’. In case you don’t know, our Desertshore project is a cover version of Nico’s entire 1970 seminal Desertshore album. ‘TG’s Desertshore - The Final Report’ (to give it its full title) was conceived by Sleazy on a long flight from Bangkok to Berlin in the winter of 2006, and we’ve been recording elements of the album since then.

And since then a lot happened…
Most of you probably know some of the story and some of you may know most of the story: Genesis walked out on TG at the beginning of the 2010 tour in November (we still have no idea why!) and we three attempted to recover from that disaster with a couple of X-TG shows. Feeling both deflated at TG ending and elated that he didn't have to work with Genesis again Sleazy returned to Bangkok later that month to work on Desertshore using new gear he’d bought for the project and to begin recording the guest vocalists. He died before he worked on a single note.

2011 was probably our busiest year since touring as Chris & Cosey in the 1980s' and 90s' and honestly we're not sure why this should be. You'd think as you get older things would begin to slow down a bit, but they haven't. Ironically we've also had to turn down more offers, projects and shows than ever before - we've felt close to burn-out a few times last year, after all we're only human and there are only 24 hours in a day, but we got through it, just.
All that aside, last year we managed to get all our Desertshore guest vocalists recorded for the album, some were done here at our studio, some in Europe and a few in the USA. Everyone we asked to collaborate said yes and everyone has done a fabulous vocal, Sleazy would be very happy. Sleazy could bluff for England and although when asked "how's the album coming along Sleazy?" he'd appease us with a "fine, I'll have some new mixes ready soon" it transpires that most of the work done on Desertshore was either done here in Norfolk by the three of us or stopped being done by Sleazy in Bangkok sometime in 2009. Oh Sleazy, Sleazy… * see update below

Which brings us to now…
All of the Desertshore material that was in Ableton Live (Sleazy's DAW of choice) has been re-conformed for Logic Pro (our DAW of choice) - a laborious process! To say these are early days would be a gross understatement, there is still a mountain of work to do - for a start we're still trying to formulate six years worth of existing recordings, audio sketches, rough mixes, scribbled notes, endless lists and recalling things suggested at many, many 'Desertshore discussions' had over a cuppa or three.

Our (self-imposed) schedule is to have the album finished by July for release late 2012 -  maybe that's being optimistic, who knows? but we do have a career outside TG and we'd like to get back to it at some point.


* update - Feb 2012:
Apologies to Sleazy… after a few more of Sleazy’s hard drives had been uncovered in Bangkok and sent directly to us we found a batch of ‘in progress’ Desertshore material he had been working on during late 2010.

Announcement Regarding Throbbing Gristle

In the evening 27th October TG members and their associated managements received two emails from Genesis P-Orridge stating he was no longer willing to perform in Throbbing Gristle and returned to his home in New York.

Cosey, Sleazy & Chris have concluded that once more, and for the time being, Throbbing Gristle has Ceased to Exist, at least as a live entity.

Therefore, and with deepest apologies, TG must cancel their scheduled performance at Archa Theatre, in Prague, Czech Republic on 30th October.
It being too short notice to offer an alternative set.

In order not to disappoint fans of the old quartet, Cosey, Peter & Chris will perform live under the name X-TG at Arena Del Sole, Bologna, Italy on 2nd November & at Casa Musica, Porto, Portugal on 5th November.

We hope fans will appreciate and enjoy this new project and the trio is looking forward to performing exciting new and radical electronic musics together.

Full refunds are available at the point of purchase if required.

Industrial Records Ltd, London. 29th October 2010

• industrial-records.com • throbbing-gristle.com •

Promo Video

Here’s a short TG video Cosey and myself put together in an afternoon. It is noteworthy for a few reasons:

• It's a promo video for Throbbing Gristle and the first as far as we are aware - well, officially at least.
• The footage is from the legendary - and as yet unreleased - TG performance at the Volksbühne in Berlin.
• It was compiled and edited in HD, another first for TG.
• It is the first video we have edited on our new MacPro.

Enjoy... and feel free to redistribute.

THROBBING GRISTLE PROMO 2010 from Industrial Records on Vimeo.

End of the year

Bloody hell, it's been two months since I posted anything on here. So I think my apologies are the order of the day... for being so outrageously lax. But to say I've been busy would be an understatement, of the greatest degree. There have been various ongoing (and unfinished) Carter Tutti projects, filming and remixes - assisting Cosey in her many solo endeavors and of course the ever present enterprises of TG. Of which the release of our new little musical box 'Gristleism' has been the most time consuming. But I'm not going to go on at any length, yet... as I'm in the process of designing and building a new website to replace this one you are on right now and I'll be updating my blog in the process. Check back here sometime in January 2010.

Gristelism update

GRISTLEISM - So that cat is out of the bag: you can see some of its colour, its ears and the top of its head but it's not meowing yet and you don't know what kind of cat it is, so to speak. All I can say right now (am allowed to) is that it's a Throbbing Gristle product and it will be released by Industrial Records (cat no. IR2009005). An 'exclusive' edition will be available for pre-order in September from the TG Web Store and a regular edition will be available shortly afterwards Worldwide.

I can also tell you that we've been secretly working on this project for many months with Christiaan Viarant. I'm making an educated guess that many of you will figure out even more from these basic details I've given. But anyway you won't have long to wait... in the meantime go here: http://www.gristleism.com

Flikr photo set http://www.flickr.com/photos/chris_carter_/sets/72157622568217418/

Better the Devil you know (?)

I can't remember the last time Cosey and I were this busy, probably during our early to mid Nineties period. But then it was recording, performing and working on projects almost exclusively related to Chris & Cosey. And although we've always had Cosey's solo Art career running in parallel with what the two of us work on together it's since 2002 that we've had to factor in ever increasing amounts of Throbbing Gristle and Industrial Records related work and projects. But during the last 12 months TG & IR has at times almost taken over our lives (well mine & Cosey's at least) and has impacted our own solo and CarterTutti projects pretty drastically.

Even if you haven't read the TG book 'The Wreckers of Civilization' you may know that the core of TG/IR (the TG four) has always been run as a democratic co-oprative cottage industry. In as much that everything we do is decided by a majority vote, all our income is shared equally and we try keep as much as possible of what we do and how we do it 'in-house' - or 'in the family'. No matter what it may appear like to outsiders the realm of TG/IR is not a dictatorship, and it never has been. In the early days: the 1970s' & 80s', that literally meant everything, well except physically pressing records. We even ran our own cassette duplication facility, churning out thousands of cassettes and covers from a converted kitchen in Hackney. I used to rent or borrow vans and Genesis and me would deliver vinyl, cassettes, t-shirts and merch in person all over London. This was apart from all the equipment building, recording, editing, mastering, filming, videoing, performing and self-promotion we did. And for most of that period we all had regular day-jobs too.

So here we are in 2009... and there are obviously still aspects and areas within TG & IR that we individually excel at or specialise in, or are sometimes co-opted into out of necessity. But it seems a lot of what we do nowadays, to keep TG running smoothly (or at all) falls on the shoulders of Cosey and me. And if we didn't 'step up to the plate' as often as we do (which is pretty much all the time) I honestly think TG would fade out of existence and cease to exist as a living, working collective.

Just telling it like it is....

A=P=P=A=R=I=T=I=O=N in Glasgow

A=P=P=A=R=I=T=I=O=N, our TG sculptural collaboration with Cerith Wyn Evans is now on exhibition at the enormous Tramway gallery in Glasgow. If you get the chance please visit this for a truly unique TG audio experience. A=P=P=A=R=I=T=I=O=N is TG being restrained and ethereal... delicate almost. It is very hard to describe an encounter with the sculpture: it uses multi-channel, highly polished, highly directional audio spotlights to project sound in a slowly, ever moving collage that seems to appear and disappear in mid air and from many directions simultaneously.

Like I said totally unique. We are all hoping that A=P=P=A=R=I=T=I=O=N will travel next year, and although there's no definite info yet as soon as we do know we'll make an announcement. - More Tramway details here.

A=P=P=A=R=I=T=I=O=N photos on Flikr.

TG USA tour

So the TG USA tour is over and here I am back in front of my computer screen (not my laptop screen). The tour was fantastic, although the schedule was a little gruelling at times. I don't think Cosey & I have traveled quite so much in so little time since touring as Chris & Cosey in the 1990s'. Still, we all had a fabulous time and the shows were great and the response was overwhelmingly positive. We met some amazing people, reconnected with many friends we hadn't seen for a long while and made some wonderful new friends along the way.

During the trip I was documenting as much as possible with my cameras and feeding a (fairly constant) flow of information to Twitter for fans to keep up with our progress. The photos can be seen on my FLIKR pages, videos can bee seen on my VIMEO pages and here is my Twitter page

Right now I am going through all the live audio recordings I made of each show on my portable recorder, which we'll hopefully be making available as downloads from our web store, along with a few other merchandise items remaining from the tour.

Preps for TG 2009 tour

Here's a short (very short) video clip of my ongoing/current preps for the forthcoming TG 2009 tour:
FLIKR video. Longer version here Vimeo video.
And here is a photo of what gear I will and won't be taking on the tour: FLIKR photo.

Descriptions and info are on the individual Flikr pages. More to come in the following weeks...

"Ying Tong Merrily On High", to all!

As you've no doubt noticed it's been quiet on these pages for the last month, so my apologies if you dropped by seeking regular news, updates and gossip.
Apart from the hectic preparations and the eventual launch of Thirty-Second Annual Report (and simultaneously relaunching Industrial Records Ltd.!!!) we've been finishing off various Carter Tutti projects, collaborations, remixes, filming, editing etc. and traveling a fair bit (although nowhere exotic, shame!).
So... now Nick has returned home for Xmas we are essentially hibernating for a week, or so. With: brief forages to the supermarket to replenish the fridge, movies and TV on tap via AppleTV (as usual there's nothing worth watching on terrestrial TV), a big Xmas tree that looks as if it has landed from another galaxy (one of Cosey's many talents) and friends/neighbours popping round bearing festive and/or pagan cheer we are pretty well sorted. Well as long as we don't get any power cuts or run out of gas for the central heating!
As the wonderful Goons once said... "Ying Tong Merrily On High", to all!
Normal transmissions will resume sometime in January 2009

The Gristleizer

The Gristleizer (or Gristleiser) is making a comeback...

To find out more go here >> from-which-gristlizer-came << and scroll to the bottom of the comments.
The original TG Gristleizer - via this link

How we've changed!

I've been a little lax keeping up to date here over the last few months, what with one thing and another. We (Cosey and me) decided that some long overdue DIY jobs around the house needed doing before autumn sets in, and as they were all outside jobs it took longer than we expected due to the variable weather here lately. But it's all pretty much completed now, I just need to replace one large interior window pane inside our studio, which I cracked while being a bit too handy when chipping away at some paintwork.

Also... we've been setting up, or rather re-activating, Industrial Records as a fully fledged Limited Company again after leaving it dormant for more than 25 years. This is to coincide with our new TG release on IR: 'The Thirty-Second Annual Report of Throbbing Gristle'. Lots more details on that are HERE. But it was a major undertaking (by our terms anyway), registering IR as a company (again), registering for VAT, getting a registered office address, making a business plan for the bank, and a ton of other boring legal stuff that's needed these days! Then we (actually it was mainly Cosey) had to put the 'product' into production. Which translates into having to cope with various suppliers, manufacturers, printers, distributors, shippers etc. etc. etc. All the screamingly frustrating stuff Mute usually to do for us for a 'major' release. Not that they've stopped, they just aren't involved in this release.
In between running Industrial and DIY we've also been recording with Millimetre and producing a dance remix for Excepter, but more on those projects later.

Next week we are both at the Frieze Art Fair, where Cosey is on a discussion panel, and where we are launching 'Thirty-Second Annual Report'. In a couple of weeks we'll be at the Liverpool Biennial where Cosey is 'in conversation', and on November 7th we are playing at the Wroclaw Industrial Festival in Poland. After all that lot we are taking some time off, as Spring 2009 looks to be busy for TG. Can't say more right now but we could be flying west, then west again.

BTW:
I've recently posted some really old TG photos on my Flikr pages. Even if you're not a TG fan they're definitely worth checking out. My, my... how we've changed!

More A=p=p=a=r=i=t=i=o=n

Fashioning a workable (and practical) realisation of the TG multi-channel audio for Cerith Wyn Evans' A=p=p=a=r=i=t=i=o=n sculpture took far longer than I expected. Admittedly, I knew it would probably be challenging working on such a complex large-scale project, co-ordinating with a lot of (talented) people and getting it all finished to a tight deadline. But not that it would mean to the exclusion of almost everything else I was working on with Cosey. Which now puts us in a position of being at least a month behind on completing all our current non-TG activities: outstanding remixes, various collaborations, solo work and of course our (now) overdue FVotSE film.
The upside (yes there IS an upside) is that A=p=p=a=r=i=t=i=o=n is truly astounding and something you just can't appreciate unless you experience it 'in situ'. We ran our first A=p=p=a=r=i=t=i=o=n test last week in a warehouse in London, well about 90% of the finished structure was up and running and the Audio Spotlights still needed polished metal covers, but everyone present was completely blown away by the TG sound track and how well it works with Cerith's sculpture.

• here's a link to short video clip of the test run •

Because of the technology used, the way the TG soundtrack is configured, the fact that the Audio Spotlights are at different heights and that the highly directional sound reflects off any nearby surface (including the backs of adjacent Audio Spotlights, which all slowly turn at the slightest gust of air, or movement) the sound has the impression of NOT coming from the structure at all but from the space surrounding it. It's a totally unique work and something you have to interact with in all its TG 3-dimensional audio glory to really appreciate.

So... right now we're time managing and juggling hours in a day, trying to prioritise a whole bunch of delayed, unfinished solo and Carter Tutti projects and even trying to complete some long-needed DIY around the house before Autumn sets in.
But no more TG... for while at least.

A=p=p=a=r=i=t=i=o=n

Unfortunately our summer break was cut short. The audio project TG are working on for our collaboration (A=p=p=a=r=i=t=i=o=n) with artist Cerith Wyn Evans reached an unexpected level of complexity after the initial recordings. Being TG's resident geek/boffin I've been attempting to find solutions for some demanding logistical (not to mention cutting edge) sound configurations. If we can pull this off the way we'd like to then the sculpture is going to be astonishing, unique and very 'TG'.
So here I am (yet again) ensconced in the studio in the middle of summer. At least this week it's been raining a lot, so we haven't missed out on too much.

Busy writing, jamming, recording, editing & rehearsing

Sorry for a lack of posting/blogging/whatever here lately but for the past 5 weeks or so we've been busy writing, jamming, recording, editing and rehearsing Throbbing Gristle and CarterTutti material for our forthcoming live shows in Europe and the UK. We're now at a stage where 95% of our sets are ready to go, just a few tweaks here and there. It's been very intense working on two new and completely different sets at the same time but it ALL sounds (and looks) wonderfully fabulous. As usual I'll begin taking photos while 'on the road' and will post selections on my Flikr site.

Gear sales on eBay

I've been getting concerned emails and comments on the interweb about my 'gear sales' on eBay.
Basically saying: "are you mad?, why?, please don't, are you short of cash?, they should be in a museum, keep them, don't sell them" and so on and so on. I'm sure you get the drift.
They are all valid points, and yes I can absolutely see where these concerns are coming from and no I'm not doing it for the cash, well not at the moment at least. I have kept back some 'unique'ish' TG items: the Gristleizers, some other hand-made fx units, a Bolex movie camera, a 'blood-stained' microphone and a couple of battered TG flight-cases. But I have a history of 'off-loading gear and moving on' every 5-10 years or so and previously I'd sold (my personal) TG and C&C gear to private collectors and through specialist auction houses. This time it's through eBay and it's generated a certain amount of interest and forum chatter. I'm not going to attempt to justify what I'm doing, I don't need to but I will explain my reasoning.
Well, apart from (the not inconsiderable) space considerations, I just don't use some of this gear anymore and I'd like other musicians to 'take up the mantel', so to speak and carry on using it while it all still works (and hopefully in new and interesting ways). One of the main reasons I started selling my old gear 10-15 years ago was that much of it was failing, malfunctioning or broken and I was spending a small fortune trying to keep it all going. So I sold it to buyers who could afford to repair, cherish and use it to make music for a few years more, as it deserved. I'm not the only member of TG who's passed on 'retired' gear so that others can get something else out of owning it either.
Also one of my morbid fears is that Cosey and I (or even all TG) will die in a plane crash and our TG and C&C archive, which even apart from the gear is MASSIVE (it literally fills a whole room in our old 'school' house) will be dumped in a land-fill never to be seen or used by anyone ever again. Irrational and possibly quite improbable I know... but hey! that's me.
Now... if someone from a museum or gallery wants to take this lot off my hand's I'm sure we could come to some arrangement but they'd better hurry.

TGV is in the wild...

Well we've done it... an actual, finished production copy of TGV is sitting here in front of me on my desk... and it's bloody brilliant!

Hat's off to Paul Taylor (in particular) and all those at Mute and Technicolor who really (and I mean REALLY) pushed the boat out over the last month or so to make this beautiful package a reality.
But as Paul said earlier today: "I'm not sure I can watch it again for a little while though".
I know exactly what you mean mate, I guess you know when you've overdone it (especially on something as intense as TGV) when even your dreams (mine) start including TG gigs, TG people, TG graphics, TG sounds (you name it!) that you've been working on for so long.

Time for a festive TG break I think. ;-)

BTW: Pre-ordered copies are being mailed as I write this.

And another milestone

The inception of TGV started after our TG 're-grouping' performance at the Astoria in May 2004 (on disc 6, I think). That show alone was a major milestone for TG as, apart from being 'free', it was our first show for 25 years or more, started the TGV ball rolling and we somehow accumulated a paid crew of around 40 people. Which was a big change from the 1970s' & 80s' when we just had a handful of volunteer helpers.
Naturally there was a film crew: consisting of a dozen or so camera operators dedicated to filming the whole thing on stage and back stage, the 'FX Rentals crew': who were recording everything onto 24-track and binaurally, a 'second unit / just in case' crew from Mute studios: who were piggy-back recording onto another 24-track, a hardcore FOH 'seen it all before' PA crew (TG's first encounter with Charlie Poulet, who's now become our regular FOH engineer). Plus of course, what was to become the current 'TG entourage' made up from: TG ourselves, our manager, tour manager, onstage & road crew, the Mute PR & merch teams and various but essential friends and family. And it's this entourage that has been our ongoing 'TG support structure' since the Astoria. So if you've ever wondered why TG don't perform live quite as much as you'd expect us to it's because (apart from following our own non-TG careers) this 'not so little lot' costs an absolute fortune in transport, airline tickets and hotel bills. Plus there's the matter of a TG fee of course! That's why we have yet to play in the USA this time around, partly because most of TG and our entourage are based in the UK and there don't seem to be (so far) any US promoters prepared to cover our substantial costs, plus the continuing demise of the Dollar exchange rate has to be factored in too. So, so far we've only played festivals in Europe or large or unusual venues like Tate Modern and the ICA where things like 'finance budgets' aren't such an issue. I guess a re-grouped TG playing in the USA would be another milestone wouldn't it?