Sonically, Cosey Fanni Tutti‘s Tutti LP surfs in there with smeary cornet across tight electronic zip-wires. The canvas is full of Torvill and Dean ice slides and squishy purcussive skids, ingredients that send your brain in prism(ing)multiples.
A shift of differing personas, Tutti has been well worth the wait. “Split”‘s centrifuged canter, “En”’s lucid equilibrium, the giddy neophytes of “Orenda” — the firmament is prickly with mutation, ill-regularised rushes of beat and swishy morphics that hypnotise, drag you into submission. “Heliy”’s dimensional delays eking in a sultry vox (that I wish there was more of), an essence that other tracks reconstitute into weird synthetic whisperings. These are the sort of sounds you can wrap your imagination around, maybe inhabit or be possessed by as they agitate a freshness that fetishes the flex, desire-lines a dare.
Tutti is a rewarding listen, more akin to the duelling currents of Carter Tutti Void‘s Transverse than the industrial nonchalance of Throbbing Gristle. It’s an album that tapestries a wholesome kinetic kick, seemingly removed from the ritualised vistas of her 1993 solo début album Time To Tell, but still anchored to its sensual shivers. Conceived as an audio self portrait of sorts, comprised of manipulated sound recordings from Cosey’s life, music and art, this was originally a soundtrack to the autobiographical installation and film Harmonic Coumaction, before being remixed into this new entity. You could say this is a slow-release time capsule that melts in there, makes for a good companion to re-reading her recent autobiography.
-Michael Rodham-Heaps-
