On the release of WHITE PHOSPHORUS: CHRIS CONNELLY PLAYS THROBBING GRISTLE:
Maybe this is a “full circle” situation. I first heard THROBBING GRISTLE at the BEGINNING of my journey — this would have been very late 1978 or very early 1979 — I read about them in my bible (the ZIGZAG guide to independent labels). But it was hearing HAMBURGER LADY on John Peel, that was the equivalent of seeing “Starman” on Top of the Pops or seeing the Pistols at the Screen on the Green: for me it was being scared shitless in my dark bedroom with my little transistor radio, same as it had been when Peely had played FRANKIE TEARDROP a while prior. I was smitten, in love, you probably were too, you probably know EXACTLY what I am talking about.
I will digress a little from the matter in hand: I corresponded with TG, and formed a friendship that lasts to this day. I explored the music the way you did back then, although theirs was a slick and friendly operation, great postcards, great stickers, a NEWSLETTER!!! And an efficient mail order service, you didn’t have to endure the condescending bastards at the Virgin on Frederick Street to get your hands on the goodies.
And then, a year later, came the live cassettes. After spending every waking moment wondering what the rest of the live performances were like beyond the snippets and tracks we had on the two albums, I could buy the C60 cassettes one at a time and listen at home. I remember my first three: THE BEST OF VOLUME 2, INDUSTRIAL TRAINING COLLEGE WAKEFIELD, and AIR GALLERY/WINCHESTER. I would cycle around Edinburgh with my cassette player in my bike basket playing them, down by the canal, down by the abandoned factory, past the church, past the CO-OP (we didn’t have Tesco yet).
Okay, which brings me to now: I could not have made WHITE PHOSPHORUS any other time: it never occurred to me, and then one day it did, I wanted to make something that reminded me of… that reminded me of… these carefree days soaked in rain through the industrial netherworlds of Edinburgh, those sun-kissed mornings delivering newspapers and listening to “Live at the Rat Club” or “Live at Nuffield Theatre”.
This album is a “full circle” situation for me, but a very personal one, I suppose. I am COMFORTABLE within the abstract madness of THROBBING GRISTLE, much more so than I ever was in the Revolting Cocks, PLEEEAAASE!!!! If you know me, you know that to be true.
WHITE PHOSPHORUS is my fave, my go-to. THEY were the architects, the writers, the attackers, and the jokers. THEY let me in, and I love them for it.
In 1981, JON SAVAGE wrote a brilliant essay called “THE TAPE DECAYS” which came with the TG 5LP box set, released shortly after they split. I bought it, still nursing a very broken heart. The essay unsettled me, because, the tape COULD decay back then in ’81. We didn’t know how digital it would get soon enough, we didn’t know it would be digitized before oxide flaked off like black snow. We’re safe, it’s ok.
The title “WHITE PHOSPHORUS” is exclusively for the deepest TG diver; if you figure out where it’s from, you’re pretty fucking cool — cooler than me!
Chris Connelly
Winchester Hat Fair
1976
WHITE PHOSPHORUS: CHRIS CONNELLY PLAYS THROBBING GRISTLE is available on a limited-edition (300 copies) 180g black vinyl pressing only.
Having carved a twisted career with behemoths MINISTRY and REVOLTING COCKS over the past 40 years, starting life with the formidable FINI TRIBE and collaborating with disparate characters such as KILLING JOKE, CABARET VOLTAIRE, JIM O’ROURKE, and too many others, I have returned to my first love, THROBBING GRISTLE, armed with a cassette recorder, a reel to reel, a razor blade and some tape. I want to invoke the spirit of mid to late 70s live TG: random, tense, scary, and compulsively fascinating. WHITE PHOSPHORUS is for the TG connoisseur, for the morbidly curious, and the tragically dysfunctional amongst us.
I present a video for the track “MOTHER SPUNK” a piece by THROBBING GRISTLE that is so uncompromising that I felt it HAD to be the first single from the album, in true TG style, defying all expectations. “MOTHER SPUNK” was lovingly re-created by me using only the bleakest of antiquated analog equipment under the most excruciating circumstances…
Chris created the cover himself, very much in the spirit of the earliest Throbbing Gristle releases, coming from a 70s Xerox angle. It goes ahead with the blessing of the surviving members of Throbbing Gristle, Chris Carter and Cosey Fanni Tutti. The album is pressed on 180g black vinyl and will be available on 30 May 2025 from Dirtier Promotions.
The SEVENDIALS album “A Crash Course in Catastrophe” is out today via Cadiz Music/Creation Youth Music in CD, vinyl, and streaming formats! Also released is a video for a second single, a cover of SPARKS’ “Number One Song in Heaven”.
In the 19th century, London’s West End area known as Seven Dials was notoriously dangerous and disreputable; a very dangerous place to be after dark. This darkness and danger provided the perfect inspiration for the dusky, foreboding sounds created by this new musical union now known as SEVENDIALS.
The first single, “Zodiac Morals”, will be released on February 28th 2025. It’s a a swaggering premonition of disaster propelled by the thunder of Paul’s drums and Mark’s weaponized guitar. What’s it about? “Using the stars to guide you because the terrain is always too dark: are the stars twinkling with hope? Or are they spent and dead infernos? The word zodiac began to have negative implications when the ZODIAC KILLER became part of the collective zeitgeist, anti-morals, zodiac morals.”
A CRASH COURSE IN CATASTROPHE, the debut album by SEVENDIALS, will follow on April 4th via Cadiz Music/CreationYouth.
While the album is available as a digital download, many fans will be interested in the limited edition CD release which ships with a unique piece of art by Chris (charcoal and pencil art on paper). The CD with artwork can be ordered from Bandcamp — and note that there are copies shipping from the UK as well as the US.
This album serves as an impressionistic view of my life in Edinburgh before I moved to the States, leaving behind what I now realize is unfinished business, unresolved aspirations, like a plant viciously ripped out by the roots and thrown away.
Following the death of my mother in 2023, I spent time wandering around the streets on my own, trying to place the melancholy, trying to steal back the essence of joy I felt in my late teens/early 20s, and it inevitably led me to write, which is the way I have always been able to answer my own questions.
There are 8 songs on this album, each rich with strong feelings of then and now, memories that may or may not be accurate, locations, events, friends and lovers. I want the listener to walk with me quietly through endless days and nights, through the streets of Edinburgh in the early 1980s, over the tenement rooftops, up the hills with cans of Red Stripe and a well stoked hash pipe. Sitting in the Wee Red Bar, Bannermans, The Gilded Balloon, or the Royal Circus. Playing endless nights of music with my beloved FINI TRIBE, dancing at the Hoochie Coochie Club.
Some of these songs are half submerged in dreams, the locations distorted, the colors heightened, the times fluid. If you knew me back then, and we were pals, you are represented, and thanks for the memories.
I no longer live there – life and its commitments have me elsewhere – but I miss it badly and have never felt at home anywhere except Edinburgh, where my soul continues to walk the New Town streets and climb the hills.
All physical copies of this album come with a unique drawing by myself. They are not copies, they are originals in charcoal and pencil of the memories that surround and thrive at the heart of this album. I sat down over a period of time and just drew, it was visceral, emotional, and a lot of fun.
A special shout out to the FINI TRIBE, stars of the song and video for FINI CHAGALL.
Album details and notes:
So Long, Ariane
Swords at St. Peter’s
Lost to Your Amour
Odeon
The Scars
Fini Chagall
Port of St. Catherine
Midnight on the Swansway
All songs written by CHRIS CONNELLY
Voice, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, sax, percussion, synth, bass, and harmonica by CHRIS CONNELLY
Mastered by JAMES SCOTT at Populist Recordings
Recorded at THE ROCK NOIR, September/October 2023
Front cover drawing: “Dancing at the Hooch” by Chris Connelly (charcoal and pencil on paper, 2023)
Back cover photograph of the Dean Village by GILLIAN WHISKER (with thanks)
Layout by KIMBERLY BLESSING
Dedicated to the lovers on St. Stephen’s
Video for “Fini Chagall” by KIMBERLY BLESSING. Includes footage of Fini Tribe taken by ANGUS CAMERON in the 1980s.
Available today on Bandcamp is Chris’s latest EP, SHELTA.
Of it, Chris writes:
When I started writing SHELTA, I presumed I was working on a new album, however, the number 5 kept coming up, so I stopped at 5 pieces — not necessarily 5 easy pieces, these songs come from grief, the fatigue that grief brings, and the constant reminders of our own limitations. These songs come from non-belonging, feeling like an outsider in one country and an outsider in my country of birth. These are songs that attempt to reconcile. It was a pleasure then…
The track listing is:
Shelta’s Lament
Of Love and Rain
Funeral Eyes
The Man Loves Zero
Fly Away Blues
All songs written, played and produced by Chris Connelly at the Rock Noir, July 2023.
For those who couldn’t make it to Chris’s recent gig at the Gman Tavern, we present Fa Massa Calor – Live at Gman 2023 – a recording of selections from that evening. The set list that night included tracks from Eulogy to Christa as well as other songs from Chris’s extensive catalog.
Track listing:
Draw From It (Like a Vampire)
Artificial Madness
Jackietown
Fa Massa Calor Aqui Fora
Oh Jim II
Largo
80s Beat Boys
Credits:
CHRIS CONNELLY – vocals, guitar, autoharp
with CAROLYN ENGLEMAN – additional keys, percussion and vocals
Recorded April 22nd 2023 at the Gman Tavern, Chicago, and mixed by Evan Peters.
Cover photo by Casey Mitchell.
All compositions by Chris Connelly except LARGO by Chris Connelly & William Rieflin.
The CD release of EULOGY TO CHRISTA is out today! Two different editions are available: the US release from Shipwrecked Industries and the UK release from Easy Action.
Both releases are double CD sets featuring the 24 track album; the UK edition comes in a card gatefold with 12-page booklet while the US edition ships in a plastic tray with a 16-page booklet.
To celebrate the release of the CD version of the album, a new video has been released — this time for “UNION SQUARE WEST”, a track which celebrates NICO‘s arrival at Andy Warhol’s Factory in NYC. The video, filmed by Chris himself, imitates the Lou Reed screen test film made by Andy Warhol — two characters who also feature prominently on the album.
The music press has continued to praise EULOGY TO CHRISTA — check out these reviews and interviews:
