Art has always tried to find answers. To make sense. To help its creator express, understand and explore their life and the world around them. Art is expression. It is a dialogue between creator and audience. It is a display of vulnerability as the artist opens up their innermost thoughts and feelings, sends it out into the world and maybe, just maybe it connects with someone.
An artist who has been at the very heart of pure self-expression for decades now is Cosey Fanni Tutti. From happenings, pornography, and music Tutti has been on the frontline often pushing boundaries, testing audiences and societal norms with complete boldness and bravery. As part of art collective COUM and founder member of pioneers Throbbing Gristle, Tutti has not just bent societal gender rules (the unspoken but overbearing patriarchal type) but smashed them and reconfigured them into a new framework where others have been inspired to follow.
In recent years, Tutti has been on a richly rewarding artistic run these last few years whether that be as one third of Carter Tutti Void, her self-titled solo album, her critically acclaimed memoir Art, Sex, Music, her book RE:SISTERS and her score to the Caroline Catz film Delia Derbyshire: The Myths and Legendary Tapes and upon listening to 2t2 it is certain that that run is set to continue.
2t2, whilst containing thematic threads and sonic similarities to TUTTI and the Delia score, is a very different proposition. Where TUTTI felt monolithic and strident, 2t2 has an intense vulnerability at its core. The edges are softer and blurred and even though Tutti’s propulsive rhythms are still at the core of the songs, 2t2 is a more contemplative listen than her recent output. The finest examples of this lay right in the centre of the album with the songs ‘Never The Same’ and ‘Stolen Time’. The former has beautifully exposed vocals which is at the forefront of the piece whilst also acting as a duet with her signature cornet. There is a feeling to this piece where Tutti is in the centre and various other personalities are surrounding her all trying to drown out her voice but failing to do so. It is one of the most impactful pieces of music that Tutti has created and is sequenced wonderfully to lead us straight into ‘Stolen Time’ which is a more contemplative and meditative piece. Here, the cornet takes centre stage as a kosmische acid ambience and Tutti’s detached vocals swim around the listener’s head.
From here we travel through the Morricone/Leone badlands of ‘Respair’ and the sci-fi ambience of ‘Threnody’, both of which display Tutti’s knowledge and mastery of the language of film scores (something she has been a part of since her TG days). Penultimate song ‘Sonance’ is a much darker proposition than what has proceeded it and it feels like a conversation between Tutti and her good friend and bandmate Peter ‘Sleazy’ Christopherson who sadly passed away in 2010 as it has a musical atmosphere reminiscent of the work they did together as X-TG and what Sleazy made as part of the seminal band Coil. 2t2 then closes with the nightmarish Limbic which is a richly textured and deeply unsettling piece.
The key to unlocking 2t2 is in its sequencing. Most musicians would start like Tutti does with an upbeat and propulsive piece (‘Curæ’) however, where others would go deep and dark early on before lifting the album up with its more introverted and ethereal pieces closing the album thus leaving the listener with the sense of optimism and contentment. Tutti, however, does the opposite. Throughout the album we get the lighter tracks first before getting deeper, darker and more unsettling as the album continues to its finale. This is not an album built to leave you with an “it’s all ok” mentality. This is an album built to get into your bones and to leave you questioning everything. The album was apparently born out of difficult circumstances containing bereavement and the surrounding chaos that is modern life. This is apparent not just in the songs themselves but how Tutti has sequenced the album (an incredibly important part of an albums success and one that often gets overlooked).
2t2 is an album full of the raw emotions of living. It portrays hurt, sadness, beauty and strength. It is an album full of heart and soul and once again shows us that with Cosey Fanni Tutti we have an artist unafraid to reveal her innermost feelings who tells us there is immense strength to be found in honesty and vulnerability.
Review by Simon Tucker
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