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.
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.
If you’re in or visiting the Chicago area this summer, make plans to see Chris at one of these upcoming events!
PS: Stay tuned for a special announcement on Tuesday, June 25th!
Saturday, June 22 – Chris and Sons of the Silent Age perform at SUMMERFEST MILWAUKEE. More information and tickets
Saturday, June 29 – Chris will be guiding a tour at the The Museum of Post Punk and Industrial Music. Get tickets
Saturday, July 13 – Chris doing a solo set at Outta Space Arts, playing a cross section of all his material. Rachel Swain, the opener, sang with Chris on DECIBELS FROM HEART. Get tickets
Monday, July 29 – Chris and Sons of the Silent Age perform a new edition of The Cracked Actor Cabaret at City Winery. Get tickets
Friday, August 16 – Chris will join the Plastic Crimewave Syndicate to sing some proto-punk and biker psyche gems at the Million Tongues Festival at Empty Bottle. Get tickets
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.
Pre-orders are now up at the WAX TRAX! online shop for Chris Connelly’s 1992 WAX TRAX! album, Phenobarb Bambalam.
This reissue has been fully remastered from original analog tapes and contains many of Chris’s classics including “July” and “Come Down Here”.
In addition to the standard pressing, we are offering multiple variants which include b-sides + rare live versions available on limited double LP editions.
PLEASE NOTE: The first 200 orders of the double LP bundle will come with a signed and numbered 8 page booklet of his previously unpublished poem PERCODAN BAMBALAM. This poem was the genesis of the Phenobarb album and will not be re-printed in this format…Ever!
For all you vinyl-phobes, Yep – We have a double CD waiting just for you in pre-order heaven.
2022 was a very creative year for me, in terms of writing and recording.
By this time last year, EULOGY TO CHRISTA was starting to take shape: I had recorded most of the songs by NICO and it was in January that I started writing the songs about her life. I have to thank author JENNIFER OTTER BICKERDICKE for her book YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL AND YOU ARE ALONE which was a real treasure trove of knowledge, and Jennifer’s support and enthusiasm was incredible. I have been overwhelmed at the response to the album, mostly because I want her story to be out there. Just like STELLA CARTWRIGHT from THE BIRTHDAY POEMS, Nico was an artist — a very important artist. Often this side of her was maligned or ignored in favour of her affiliations with people like Iggy, Dylan, Reed — and, of course, heroin. But her art was unique: she invented her sound, along with the empathy, talent, and skill of John Cale, of course.
SONS OF THE SILENT AGE finally got to play in May and it was a wonderful experience, with our friend MICHAEL SHANNON bringing T REX back to life in front of our eyes! Later that summer, we, along with many of his musical friends, would play a set to honour our late friend JOE CASSIDY. Joe was a beautiful man, and a brilliant musician, he died far too young. Joe and I became friends when he moved to Chicago in the 90s, and he generously scored the strings for the album BLONDE EXODUS.
I had another appearance later in the summer after the passing of CYNTHIA PLASTERCASTER, someone I have been friends with since I moved here in 1988. It was a pleasure to throw down with THE HANDCUFFS playing “Tae the Poets” (from THE BIRTHDAY POEMS), a Mothers of Invention song – “Why Don’t You Do Me Right”, and “Where Have All the Good Times Gone by The Kinks.
In March, to commemorate BILL RIEFLIN’s death, I recorded the LARGO 22 EP — reworking three of the songs we had written together and writing “Largo’s Prayer” in his honour. Between this release and Prayer birthday tribute, we raised $585 this year for the clinic where Bill spent his last times.
A new JOY THIEVES EP was recorded and released — “6 TO 3”, a violent musical reaction to the supreme court overturning ROE V WADE. I wrote the lyrics and sang “Property” to remind the world that a woman’s body is her body. All money raised from this brilliant EP (which has a ton of amazing remixes) is going to the NATIONAL NETWORK OF ABORTION FUNDS.
The documentary “WHAT YOU COULD NOT VISUALIZE” about the brilliant band REMA REMA came out this year. Both myself and FRANK NARDIELLO were interviewed about this unique and incredible band who released one EP in 1980, whose flame has never died.
…And then there was the REVOLTING CORPSE. This was the last run of this incarnation — who knows what will happen in the future. I just know that although I am (skeptically) proud of this band, but I am not going back. The final show in Denver was just wonderful, followed by a night in a hotel that looked like a set from “Saw”. Hmmmmm. The audiences were great and I don’t take it for granted, but I am hanging up that battered old Stetson. I do have to say, the fun and camaraderie of PAUL BARKER, JASON NOVAK and DAN BRILL (and the lads from FRONT 242) is a real tonic.
So now it is 2023! I am focusing on the next album, which I am recording right now, and looking forward to new music in 2023.
Thank you SO much for listening to what I do. I get emails and messages from all over and I am often overwhelmed at the kindness and sincerity of these.
It’s November 11th which means two things: first, it’s Chris’s birthday, and second, EULOGY TO CHRISTA is now available for streaming and digital purchase!
If you’ve not heard about EULOGY TO CHRISTA: A TRIBUTE TO THE MUSIC & MYSTIQUE OF NICO until now, you can get all of the details here.
To celebrate the release of the album, a new video for the track FEMME FATALE, made by Iain W. Mutch/Walkerandwilliam, is also out — watch below or on YouTube.
There’s been loads of great press and positive reviews of the singles popping up online, and Chris has done a few interviews as well. Here’s a small sampling of some — keep up with Chris on social media for more:
RIPCORD, RIPCORD, the second single from Eulogy to Christa: A Tribute to the Music & Mystique of Nico, is out today!
The song is a powerful opener to the album, based on a pivotal event in the young life of Christa Päffgen. Chris learned of this story when reading Jennifer Otter Bickerdicke‘s biography of Nico, YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL AND YOU ARE ALONE. “When Nico was in her mid-teens, she worked in a U.S. army office in Berlin. She was raped by an American soldier and the soldier was executed. Some have said this may not have happened. Some have gone so far as to call her a liar. This event and the trauma of being in the rubble of post-war Berlin clearly, in my opinion, helped create the haunted spirit of Nico.”
Listen to the track on Bandcamp or Soundcloud, and watch the video by Kimberly Blessing on YouTube or below.
