4. Throbbing Gristle – 20 Jazz Funk Greats
Cosey [Fanni Tutti] said that she loved the title because of the idea that it might be found in a bargain bin in Woolworths. It’s their most famous record, but it’s like each track has been taken away and made into a project. There are so many paths leading from that album. ‘Distant Dreams Part II’ is my favourite TG track and it’s not on that record, then ‘Beachy Head’ is like David Lynch’s Eraserhead soundtrack. And I think that ‘Hot On The Heels Of Love’ and ‘Discipline’ are probably the sexiest records ever made. I got into Throbbing Gristle in the mid-2000s, through my manager Paul Smith at the time, he also managed TG. I think he gave me one of the compilation records first off, I think he was trying to ease me in gently. It was really difficult to choose between that and Chris & Cosey’s Trance album, because I love that. I love ‘Re-Education Through Labour’, which I probably play in every DJ set I do. They’ve got so many amazing tracks and you’ll say to them ‘my favourite is ‘Distant Dreams Part Two’ or ‘Re-Education Through Labour’, and they’ll look at me and go ‘really?’. It’s one of those records that you’d listen to on repeat, the diversity within the tracks, but again you can hear it’s all done by the same band. It’s a record of spontaneous work, not going in with a pre-conceived idea and working with what instruments they were playing around with at the time, and what samples they were manipulating.
