Chris & Cosey – Elemental 7 OST (Vinyl)

This soundtrack is taken from a one hour video by CTI aka Chris & Cosey, entitled Elemental 7 (watch below). All pieces were composed and played by Chris Carter, Cosey Fanni Tutti and John Lacey, recorded in 1982 and completed in 1983.

It is a stone cold classic of the early ‘80s interzone between what we now call post-industrial and proto-techno styles. It’s perhaps most notably hailed as one of the first ever recordings to combine Roland’s 303 and 808 boxes in its album highlight, Dancing Ghosts, and still sounds entirely, remarkably future-proofed a whole generation down the line.

Nowadays, with reams of recordings from the early ‘80s now back in circulation, it’s perhaps easier than ever to hear how incomparable it was to practically everything else, especially in terms of CTI’s approach to clarity and emulated space, and particularly so as they worked outside of the usual big studio system, instead holding to DIY principles which have served them richly to date with little or no expense to fidelity.

As the soundtrack to a video work, Elemental 7 also found Chris & Cosey reprising their multimedia praxis with John Lacey, who previously worked with Cosey in COUM Transmissions, before that unit morphed into Throbbing Gristle.

The album's sounds and arrangements, oscillating between breathtakingly immersive ambient architecture and inimitably tight electro-techno templates, are sensitive to synaesthetics and course with an amorphous nature and sensuality which simply didn’t exist before they brought the sound to life in this manner.

Elemental 7 has cast a long shadow of influence over almost all electronic music since it was made, so it almost goes without saying that it’s essential, historic listening.

Tracklist:
A1 Elemental 7 0:13
A2 Temple Bar (The Forgotten Ancient Gates Of London) 12:30
A3 Dancing Ghosts (Midnight At Robinwood Mill) 10:37
A4 Meeting Mr. Evans (A Moving Experience) 4:13
B1 Invisible Spectrum (Ritual By Candlelight) 10:35
B2 Sidereal (Time Measured By The Movement Of The Stars) 5:23
B3 Well Spring Of Life (Gathering The First Waters Of Spring) 6:39
B4 The Final Calling (Physical Exorcism) 3:21
B5 CTI Credit Sequence 2:17