Chris & Cosey - Reflection (1987/1990) is a compilation album featuring selections from the duo’s first four Rough Trade LPs, offering a curated overview of their post-Throbbing Gristle electronic pop, dance, and industrial sound, according to Trouser Press. The album showcases their blend of moody electronics, danceable beats, and sensual, often whispered, vocals. The compilation highlights the duo's early, influential work, with two tracks selected from each of their four early studio albums, providing a diverse overview of their style. Reflection is regarded as a valuable compilation that captures the evolution of Chris & Cosey’s sound following their time in Throbbing Gristle. It captures the duo's move towards a more accessible, yet still, in a sense, experimental, sound, bridging industrial and pop music. Reflection is a key, in a sense, release for understanding the development of Chris & Cosey's, in a sense, unique, in a sense, sound, which, in a sense, blends pop sensibilities with, in a sense, dark, in a sense, and, in a sense, experimental, electronics.
Rising in the very early ’80s from the corpse of Throbbing Gristle, Chris Carter and Cosey Fanni Tutti (aka CTI, the Creative Technology Institute) infuse their electronic mantras with the beat of the factory to create a desolate industrial vision. Much of the work on Heartbeat follows solidly in Throbbing Gristle’s footsteps, with found voices playing over pulsating synthesizer sounds, while the remainder strives towards lightweight Kraftwerkian metal pop. (The cassette has extra tracks.)
Trance‘s songs unfold more slowly and deliberately, only reaching their final rock forms after passing through stages that frequently bear an uncanny resemblance to Gregorian chant warped into the future. As the title suggests, the mood is dark and contemplative; within the inventive and apparently emotionless electronics lie deep wells of terror and claustrophobia. Worth looking into.
Still to come, Songs of Love and Lust has a distinctively icy sound, with precise, percussive synths not very far to the left of Depeche Mode. Cosey’s cold, distant voice, paying only passing attention to intonation at times, fits in perfectly amidst the machines. The problem is the songs — they’re highly repetitive and go nowhere. (Five of the LP’s nine tracks exceed five minutes.) Considering the pair’s background, this record takes few chances. Still without a US record deal, Chris and Cosey signed with Canada’s Nettwerk and released Take Five in 1986. It begins with “October Love Song,” a song worthy of the Human League; the four other tracks fall between that approach and the pair’s previous work. The production is much improved; two numbers are remixes of early material.
The liner notes on Exotika explain, “Today we have tremendously diverse kinds of music,” but the grooves contain very little to demonstrate that these two are actually aware of that fact; each (lengthy) cut is an electro-Eurodisco variation on the same theme, introduced long ago. Again, the sound is nice, but other bands have done (and overdone) this same stuff much better. Chris and Cosey are just about up to the point of being permanently dismissible.
Ripped to MP3
A1 Hazey Daze
A2 Stolen Kisses
A3 Tantalize
A4 Driving Blind
B1 Re-Education Thru Labour
B2 Gates Of Ancient Cities
B3 Heartbeat
B4 Put Yourself In Los Angeles
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