Pink/Purple Vinyl
See also Elemental 7 and Feral Vapours Of The Silver Ether
Long out of print or first time vinyl pressings of some vital transmissions from the 40 years and counting flex Chris and Cosey have made their own. If you know much of their oeuvre, you'll know the original release dates to be instructive of approach. Elemental 7, released in 1984, takes its name from and soundtracks an hour long film made by the duo with John Lacey and finds them exploring more impressionistic sounds of the post-industrial landscape: ie end of the world music - funny how that kind of thing always sounds relevant, as if the world is always on the verge of toppling over. Essentially what came after for the original Destroyers of Civilisation. Muzik Fantastique! sees them enter the electro-zone, making gestures to the Detroit sound that originally took Throbbing Gristle as its inspiration, thus completing the circle. It's no surprise that Carl Craig was to remix opener, Fantastique. Still, since it's Chris and Cosey, this is no straight up homage, for every dancefloor filled there's a more ethereal soundtrack to some back room/door skirmish (see the disorientating fourth world-isms of Afrakira or the closing one-two lullaby of Neverneverland and Melancholia). Feral Vapours of the Silver Ether was first released as a Carter Tutti production and is the most recent of the lot, issued as a CD in 2007. Here they're in more what you might describe as post-Coil ambient territory, almost beatless, zoning out into ether, now high above the land they allegedly helped raze to the ground in their youth. Taken all at once, it's apparent just how revolutionary their shape-shifting contributions to electronic music are, providing an era-spanning cross section of two of the best to ever do it.
