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When half of Throbbing Gristle ended up on a UFO LP cover, making out pantsless


 
In 1975, the notable British buttrock band UFO released Force It, a barrage of boogie riffs and and double-entendre lyrics about fucking. As hesher-metal albums go, it was fairly interchangeable with a lot of the era’s hard rock, but its cover art has proven durable even as the band’s sound has aged. It’s a photograph depicting what could be read as a coercive sexual advance between a couple of indeterminate sex, one of whom is sans pants. Collaged into the photo are many, many faucets.

Faucet. Force it. You get it, ha ha, let’s move on.

The cover was designed by one of the era’s most distinctive and forward-thinking design studios, Hipgnosis. The firm consisted of designers Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey Powell, and were responsible for singularly surreal album art for Pink Floyd, Peter Gabriel, and Led Zeppelin, among many, many other clients. Force It was hardly their only controversial work, but it ranked high on that score. The US version of the cover was censored, by making the aggressively embracing couple half transparent. The irony here is that the models for that cover were already known for works that made the Force It cover look kid-friendly. From Neil Daniels’ High Stakes & Dangerous Men: The UFO Story,:

The artwork was risky for the time and because of the amount of flesh on display was almost banned—well, it was the 1970s, a non-PC age, but also surprisingly prudish too. It was toned down for the USA release, where they were even more prudish. One point of interest, is that the gender of the couple remained a cause of debate amongst UFO fans, but the couple turned out to be Genesis P. Orridge [sic] and his then girlfriend Cosey Fanni Tutti.

 

Kissing and buttocks mercifully ghosted for delicate American sensibilities.

Many of this blog’s regular readers know that Genesis P-Orridge and Cosey Fanni Tutti were, at the time, the principals behind COUM Transmissions, an art group known for incredibly transgressive performances that included heavy doses of kink, up to and including unsimulated bleeding and vomiting, violence, and even live sex—so this “controversial” photo was actually one of the tamest things they’d ever done. The year after Force It, COUM would evolve into the pioneering industrial band Throbbing Gristle, and Throbbing Gristle included in its membership one Peter Christopherson, who in the mid ‘70s was an assistant at…Hipgnosis.

More after the jump…

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Posted by Ron Kretsch
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07.19.2016
10:52 am
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Chris & Cosey: seminal electronic albums re-issued

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It’s time to even out the love for Throbbing Gristle members Genesis P. Orridge and Peter Christopherson here on DM, with some overdue appreciation of the original “Other Two,” Chris Carter and Cosey Fanni Tutti. If you need an introduction, I will refer you back to yesterday’s post on the excellent interview with the pair at their home studio, courtesy of Electric Independence. 

Electronic music pioneers, and also of dance music strains that went on to be called “Italo” and “Industrial,” C&C have been re-issuing their back catalog over the past few months. The first two albums of four, Heartbeat and Trance came out in 2010 the duo’s own CTI label, and the final two in a series of four, Exotika and Songs Of Love And Lust were re-issued earlier this year. The releases have been remastered and repackaged for limited edition vinyl, and are also available to download digitally.

The closest comparison between the works of Throbbing Gristle and Chris & Cosey (now known as Carter Tutti) would probably be that of Joy Division and New Order. Without sounding particularly similar, both TG and Joy Division were dark, intense, noisy and at times morbid bands who gave birth to projects that took electronic music in a much more upbeat, danceable, poppy direction. It’s complete supposition on my part, but I can’t help but think that tracks like “October Love Song” had a big influence on Sumner & chums:

Chris & Cosey - “October Love Song”
 

 
Chris & Cosey - “Walking Through Heaven”
 

 
Chris & Cosey - “Exotika”
 

 
Chris & Cosey - “Re-Education Through Labour”
 

 
The albums I mentioned above are linked to their respective purchase/listen pages on Boomkat—however there is LOTS more C&C material that can be purchased on the site (two pages worth)—just type in “Chris & Cosey” and have a look.

Posted by Niall O'Conghaile
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04.12.2011
01:50 pm
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