Suffering Jukebox

This morning's episode features a live (by phone) interview with local artiat Joshua MacGregor, who releases music as Spirit Lights. Last week, on June 12th, Spirit Lights released two albums via the local record label 4000 Record, Spirit Lights and In Balance. You can catch Spirit Lights live tomorrow night (Tuesday 17th June) at The Institute of Modern Art as part of Mono 55 in a collaborative performance with Noir Et Blanc and alongside Felicia Atkinson. On June 27th Spirit Lights will also be launching their album at It's Still A Secret with Ghostwoods and Fhae.  Find out more about Spirit Lights (and purchase their music) here https://spiritlights.bandcamp.com/music

Nick's Pick of the Week is Cosey Fanni Tutti's 2T2. You can hear the whole album in all the usual places, or purchase it here https://cti.greedbag.com/ and my review can be read below.

Cosey Fanni Tutti: 2T2 (Conspiracy International)

Released 13th June 2025

Despite being active —and rather prolific— since the late 1970s, 2T2 is, somewhat surprisingly, Cosey Fanni Tutti’s third proper solo album. Her first, Time To Tell, was released in 1983, shortly after the (initial) demise of Throbbing Gristle, the group with which she is most notably associated and it would take her 36 years to produce its follow up, 2019’s Tutti. Meanwhile she kept herself busy by releasing music as Chris and Cosey, Carter Tutti and Carter Tutti Void with her husband Chris Carter (also ex-Throbbing Gristle) as well as soundtrack work and various other projects. Cosey is also a celebrated visual artist and author, having published her autobiography Art Sex Music in 2017 and the memoir-cum-biography Re-Sisters in 2022.

2T2 was born from a period of intense personal difficulty, the details of which Cosey has not divulged. Composition began around 2022, but was shelved for about a year whilst she navigated the fallout from various private occurrences. When she returned to the tapes, in 2023, Cosey discovered that what she had recorded no longer echoed her feelings and began reworking the songs so to better reflect her current state of mind. This period of rebuilding ultimately resulted in an album with two distinct sides and personalities, side one being the more rhythmic and propulsive and side two taking on a more meditative and reflective feel.

Curæ, is driven by a throbbing, electronic pulse, an energetic start to the album, with a danceable quality that inspires and provokes movement, as does To Be which invokes all the gothic electronica of Chris and Cosey’s earliest releases, Heartbeat and Trance. Stound is unique for containing vocal stylings inspired by an overtone chant workshop Cosey attended, wherein individuals learnt to vocalise together, in unison. This effect results in the voice being utilised more as an instrument than a communicative tool and provides the songs with a unique, otherworldly effect.

Some of 2T2’s most compelling moments are found on its second side, such as the mournful, soulful strains of harmonica that breaks the experimental ambience of Respair; or the slow burn of Sonance and Limbic. It is Threnody, however, that ultimately stands out as the album’s true masterpiece. Four minutes of pure, solemn beauty, Threnody is dedicated to Delia Derbyshire and Andy Christian and named for a drawing by Christian that is now in Cosey’s possession. Derbyshire —an early pioneer of electronic music— and Cosey never crossed paths in the formers’s lifetime, but her artistry has had a profound influence on much of Cosey’s career. Beyond being a mere dedication, Threnody feels like an attempt at communication, a musical message sent across the void from one icon to another.

Artists such as Cosey Fanni Tutti are few and far between. She has dedicated her life to exploration and experimentation in the field of sound and beyond, with few peers and almost no parallels. 2T2 is a beautiful and engaging collection of music that continues her life’s work and demonstrates that, even at the age of 73, she is still capable of breaking new sonic ground.

Nick Stephan