Audiopile Review: There are legends and then there are legends. Like you, we love the godlike Peter Hammill. He’s a hooj ledge, obviously, but he’s also fundamentally a music nerd, who’s major influence has been on other music nerds. Only a handful of cult musicians have had an impact that spreads way beyond the sometimes-insular world of music fandom. To say Cosey Fanni Tutti, of Throbbing Gristle and Chris & Cosey infamy, is such a musician may legitimately undersell her impact. Cosey is a true multidisciplinary artist, who’s as at home making an art installation or writing a book as she is in the recording studio. She’s also a fearless innovator who has been there, done that, and bought the t-shirt. Most likely she even designed the t-shirt, which was so shocking that the screen printers got raided by the police. And a half-century into her career, she’s still producing significant work. Her new album ‘2t2’ is, by all accounts, a deeply personal work. And it’s as emotive as that implies. Leaning on both the atmospheric and the rhythmic elements of her back catalogue, it features all the synths you’d expect alongside Cosey’s voice and signature cornet. ‘2t2’ is another admirable achievement in a long career full of admirable achievements.

Composed, performed and produced by Cosey Fanni Tutti, this nine-track album moves between propulsive beat constructions and expansive electronic explorations, continuing themes from 2019’s acclaimed album TUTTI. It is a personal reflection; a sonic realization of her life, drawing on her powerful inner resolve and expressing it through music. The album finds Cosey making sense of some very tough years, dealing with personal bereavements alongside swinging world events. Centering on her own strength and self will, the album’s two distinct parts — one rhythmic, one more meditative — are connected by an overwhelmingly positive mood. Even in the more melancholic moments, there’s a lightness that she explains is an “acknowledgement that it’s alright to be sad, that’s part of life, but there is so much joy too in our memories of people we lose and in the moments we share with each other. Joy is our resistance.” There are also threads from her most recent projects running through 2t2. Cosey’s process and the different strands that make up her work form a totality of vision. She goes on to say, “Once you get creating and listening, weaving, collaging sound it’s a wonderfully fulfilling feeling that takes you both out of yourself at the same time as essentially deep within.” The artwork reflects this idea that the album is a “sound cameo,” reflecting the light within the music, and the buzz of life that exists within all of Cosey’s work. Musician, artist and author Cosey Fanni Tutti has continually challenged boundaries and conventions through her work. As a founding member of the hugely influential avant-garde band Throbbing Gristle, one half of electronic pioneers Chris and Cosey, and as an artist channeling her experience in pornographic modelling and striptease, her work on the margins has reshaped the mainstream.