Late last week, observant souls on the internet had a look at Chris & Cosey’s website and noticed that their Event Horizon page of planned work included the following: "Recording, mixing and production of TG Desertshore project for 2012 IR Ltd. release."
The Desertshore project is Throbbing Gristle’s interpretation of Nico’s album of the same name, which began as an installation at the London ICA in June 2007. Although a 12 disc CDR recording of the installation was made available shortly after the ICA event, TG had planned to bring these together into an album format.
It was this project that Peter ‘Sleazy’ Christopherson was working on at the time of his death late last year. When we interviewed Chris & Cosey last month, they explained that they had taken up the reigns in getting the Desertshore project completed. "We’re working on that now, and we’re still trying to get a lot of Sleazy’s stuff back from Bangok," Chris Carter told us. "When we started it, the three of us were working on it together, but it was his concept and he came up with a lot of the tracks. He came here and we worked on it for a few weeks, that was 2007, 2008, then he took those parts back to Bangkok. Those were the parts that he was working on when he died that we’re trying to get back now. We’ve got some of the gear back, he was using special gear to record it, and then we’re getting the guest vocalists to do the different tracks."
Cosey Fanni Tutti added that Sleazy had been trying a contact a host of interesting vocalist to contribute to the project: "Sleazy wanted to get Jake Thackray, but he’d died. And then he was trying to get Oliver Postgate, and he died. We’re hoping Sleazy had recorded some himself."
What’s your experience of Nico as an artist? Chris Carter: "I was never a big fan of Nico, this was Cosey and Sleazy’s thing! I prefer the earlier stuff. It was Sleazy’s project, then Cosey and Sleazy’s, then I came in on it. He had such a specific idea of how he wanted it to sound that’s quite odd. It doesn’t really sound like TG, or Coil, it’s this new sound that Sleazy came up with and we’ve got to try and convince people that it’s going to work. It’s something that we’re trying to realise from what he’s done already, hopefully for release this year. Desertshore will be the final Throbbing Gristle album."
For a full Chris & Cosey interview, keep tuned to the Quietus.
