Carter Tutti Void
Transverse

Throbbing Gristle have died twice.

The first time was on June 23, 1981, and it was an act of will: simply “the mission is terminated”, and by their own admission, the pioneers of industrial music considered their journey complete.

The second was on November 24, 2010: after a brief reunion, a tragic event put a definitive end to the existence of TG, the death of Peter Christopherson.

I don’t listen to TG every day, but sometimes I miss them. I'm therefore pleased to console myself with this “Transverse”, the latest release from the indestructible Chris Carter and Cosey Fanni Tutti, where the third reincarnation of Genesis P-Orridge’s Psychic TV sounds too rock to serve as an equivalent surrogate, while Coil, the project of the same Christopherson, had already ceased to exist a few years ago due to another tragic event, the untimely death of Jhon Balance. Active since 1981 (first under the moniker Chris & Cosey, later as Carter Tutti), the two former TG members have consistently and determinedly continued their path of exploration over time, releasing good works too, with the only disadvantage of not being able to compete with the charisma of a Genesis P-Orridge or the artistic genius of the acclaimed Christopherson/Balance partnership.

The reviewed “Transverse”, released in 2012, brings us a live performance that the duo (accompanied on this occasion by Nick Colk Void, muse of the industrial act Factory Floor) held on May 13, 2011, in London for the Short Circuit Festival, an event promoted by the Mute label. A performance that unfolds in four movements characterized by techno-trance/electro-industrial pulsating geometries from Carter on one side, and noise/avant-garde improvisations from the two ladies on the other. A sonic exploration that updates the obsessions of the Death Factory, pushing them towards the pseudo-dance realms of harsh and mind-numbing electronics.

The four phases of this work should be experienced as a single journey where the sounds, though muffled, are excellent: only the sporadic audience interventions between sections betray the live dimension of the performance.

The sonic flow originates from the obsessive pounding of the kick in “V1”, a thundering pulse that will accompany us, developing and constantly changing, throughout the trip. In “V2”, the sounds turn mechanical, materializing into phantasmagoric whistles of muazzin in a trance state, guitars rumble on the edge of noise rock; in “V3” we already face a pasty and deformed electronic sound, industrial rust returns to encrust a shell we thought would house pure techno (are we finally in the famous “Idioteque” sung by Thom Yorke?). In “V4” “Transverse” reaches its apotheosis and definitive sublimation in a cubic room with continuously overlapping and shifting chessboard walls, a non-place where the listener finds themselves dancing in slow motion, suspended between the suggestions of a wild rave-party, an ancestral rite, and a stream of consciousness propelled by amphetamine and LSD.

Having set aside the introspective effort of the previous “Feral Vapours of the Silver Ether” (2007), the English duo’s exploration adopts once again the sparse and bloodthirsty language of industrial, noise and the most visionary psychedelia, a soliloquy that nevertheless does not shy away from the demands of a refined exploration capable of contemplating even the spiritual dimension of music conceived essentially as a vehicle to transport the mind beyond the surface of mere reality.

An anachronistic proposal if you will, but there’s no doubt that Carter and Tutti are not indulging themselves: the imperceptible rhythmic variations, the sonic polychromies, the relentless and simultaneous clash of pounding beats and environmental stasis, repetition, and improvisation, vitality and annihilation, a dialectic constantly irrigated by the inclusion of ever-new elements, all contribute to shaping a mutable creature, more dynamic than it might appear above the deceptive static façade. But above all, a sonic experience that lends itself to a multiplicity of interpretations: a strenuous search that thrives on the tension between opposing forces and the constant effort to achieve a balance between harmony and dissonance, order and deconstruction, spirit, psyche, and matter.

Starting from the cover (which, if observed carefully, is incredibly annoying to the eye), “Transverse” is therefore only an apparently simple album, as various listens will unveil the secrets behind an experience spanning almost forty years. And “Transverse” gives us forty minutes (excluding the last negligible track, “V4 Studio (Slap 1)”, a bonus track that takes up the last section and reworks it in the comfort of studio walls, without making major changes), forty minutes, as mentioned, in which we can once again savor the unmistakable taste of one of the most complex realities (the gentlemen from the first paragraph, I mean) that modern music has ever delivered to us and whose potential seems still far from being exhausted.