BEST OF C.O.U.M. / excerpts from a tape genesis p-orridge sent to the stuttgart post-fluxus artist albrecht/d. in 1977

C.O.U.M. was a transgressive performance art group formed in 1969 as a tribal gathering of musicians, visual artists and happening acteurs including genesis p-orridge, peter christopherson and cosey fanni tutti, the threesome that in 1976 were only a few seconds away from the moment that they would spend the rest of their lifes as throbbing gristle; just before they met chris carter, the then-to-be fourth member of TG, they teamed up with the stuttgart post-fluxus artist albrecht/d. on drums; they had met him at a concert he performed with joseph beuys at the ica in 1974, recorded at least three hour-long tapes with him in 1976 and 1977 and continued to work with him and chris carter as C.O.U.M. and/or throbbing gristle up to the early eighties.

probably in 1977 genesis p-orridge sent a coumpilation (sorry!) ov some live and rehearsal room recordings executed by C.O.U.M. and/or throbbing gristle to albrecht/d. including something new, something old, some sounds with and some sounds without albrecht/d. on drums, some things borrowed and some things blue and so on and so on on a compact cassette tape just labelled as 'BEST OF C.O.U.M.' with no credits at all. in 1982 albrecht/d. presented me a copy of these recordings on a completely uninscribed tdk cassette tape and i vanished it (that's the active version of it) in the black holes of my collection. only recently i found out about it again and transformed a digital version of it, the only version known in this world as far as i can see...

as the complete version of this tape is about 90 minutes long i had to cut out some of the music: the first six or seven minutes of side two are wobblywobbly and i cut them out and threw them away. the last minutes of that side are a coherent and lovely piece of music that you can here next door in my blog/podcast 'kraut mask replica', you may find the link somewhere on the right side of this blog. the remaining 70 minutes of sound are included here, unwashed and shining brightly. the last few minutes of the tape had genesis p-orridge talking to albrecht/d. about his cat tremble and the punk bands that started to play in the clubs in 1976 and 1977 ad that he did not like all too much: this private message is included here as well.

in 2013 albrecht/d. was found dead in his flat in stuttgart. in december 2015 there will be an exhibition of his work at the württembergischer kunstverein stuttgart, watch out here and there for more information. by the way, i will be part of the band that is going to be performing some noise for the vernissage (listen to ebbes/d. in their rehearsal room) and the exhibition will include some of his works that i kept as a secret in my private collection.

so listen now to 76 minutes of rare C.O.U.M. and/or throbbing gristle noise within or without albrecht/d. recorded in 1976 or 1977

(mp3 / direct listening or download / NO scans included, just download the pictures here / please note that there is a continouos whistling skirl on these recordings: you will hate it)