After Throbbing Gristle split up in 1981, Genesis P-Orridge kept the psychedelic influence and more or less inspired messages of revolt at the helm of Psychic TV, Peter Christopherson kept the taste for shattering sonic experimentation alive in Coil, while Chris Carter and Cosey Fanni Tutti have preserved the coldness and implacable minimalism, infusing them with more rhythm than was usually found in the founding industrial band, whether together as Chris & Cosey and then Carter Tutti, or separately on their respective solo albums, or as a trio with a British artist of another generation, Nik Colk Void, in the form of Carter Tutti Void. To our delight, the pair are still going strong after half a century of experimentation of all kinds, and this time it's Cosey Fanni Tutti who returns to present us with her latest solo album, 2t2.
After the oppressive Tutti of 2019, or the cold instrumental drifts of Carter Tutti Void's Triumvirate album the same year, 2t2 immediately surprises us with its livelier, more organic character. The heart of the first four tracks is made up of electronic loops with taut rhythms in the purest industrial tradition, yet Cosey's voice envelops them, rarely singin but breathing and vibrating, sometimes speaking, extending into long perdition or catching its breath, without sparing the effects of reverberation; the electronics evolve independently of it, inexorable, yet it is indeed the voice that carries the melody. Cosey Fanni Tutti doesn't use tricks such as tempo acceleration, abrupt crescendos or pounding riffs: what interests the British artist are the emotions induced by the sounds themselves, which slowly but surely permeate our minds. What we feel most here, then, is the opposition between the life embodied by the human voice, which ceaselessly abandons itself only to regain its strength, and the implacable mechanics that make our hearts beat with anguish. As she has said on several occasions, Cosey Fanni Tutti composed this album in a search for resilience in the face of her concern for the state of the world and her own personal trials.
If Curæ and Stound remain a little too airy to fully carry us away on this first part of the album, we are immediately seduced by the anxiety and strength of To Be, where loops answer and oppose each other while Cosey's lyrics obsessively resonate. Never The Same really reaches its climax: the icy layers, whistles and saxophone sound echoing in the void, combined with a surprisingly gentle loop, create an atmosphere of appalling loneliness, in which Cosey's own voice shudders with despair. This track still torments us long after we've listened to it.
But 2t2 still has plenty of surprises in store. With Stolen Time and the following tracks, the album suddenly becomes much calmer; the rhythmic beats disappear in favor of ambiences delicately constructed by the superimposition of sounds, which accumulate and respond to each other with progressive touches. As subtle as they are, the melodies remain sufficiently present to ensure that we never sink into pure ambience, which would inevitably be a little hollow; on the contrary, we watch these sound worlds unfold with calm fascination. These are different emotions that 2t2 builds here: while they vary considerably from track to track, what unites them is the feeling of having regained a form of confidence in introspection, no longer feeling the anxiety of opposing external forces, allowing us to build something else internally.
Moving from one peak to the next, Stolen Time is the most striking of them all. A nuanced harmony is created between the long saxophone calls, soft electronics and Cosey's dreamy voice; loneliness and bewilderment become a delicious lull. The impression of reconstruction grows as Respair's pulsating harmonica slowly builds, from the warm Threnody, where machine noise swims underground to the melody of synthesizer strings. The last two tracks are rougher: Sonance is a drone piece that stretches into the space of disquieting layers, while Limbic is a journey through a succession of gloomy sounds, as if we were plunging into our own inner darkness this time.
In only forty minutes, Cosey Fanni Tutti has given us an album of extraordinary variety. If we like the artist's latest creations, not to mention the classics of Throbbing Gristle and Chris & Cosey, we develop a particular affection for 2t2 because of the incredible diversity it combines with his mastery. Of the album's two parts, the second was ultimately the more interesting, both slower and richer in sonic experimentation. While it takes several listens to fully grasp the album's richness, the ambiences of Never The Same and Stolen Time leave a lasting impression. Without ever taking the easy way out, Cosey Fanni Tutti delivers a splendid album, another masterstroke in a career that has already brought us so much.
