Carter Tutti Void – Triumvirate (Conspiracy International)

Carter Tutti Void bring their collaboration to a close with third album Triumvirate, an exploratory set of enveloping post-techno compositions

Triumvirate closes the door on Chris Carter, Cosey Fanni Tutti and Nik Void’s collaboration, but does so in a manner that is the very opposite of running out of ideas. For experiencing these exploratory pathways is akin to plugging Carter Tutti Void into your eXistenZ bio-port. Casual listening is not possible. Triumvirate passes the sensory deprivation tank test in that there’s no climbing out until it’s done.

The repetitive post-techno throb of “t3.2” comes on like the sky folding in. It’s as if the trio are carving their way through reality, sonically-evolved human machinery causing shards of the here and now to peel off from the edges. These fragments adopt evocative, two dimensional forms, like shadows passing across the walls of Plato’s cave or E-induced corner-of-the-eye visions in a basement club. “t3.3” opens up your gates, inner space manifesting out in the open. Landscapes keel as sounds fire off in a multitude of directions, where micro-universes are manipulated and ancient intergalactic conflicts hinted at; memories taking a last breath.

The electronic strut of “t3.4” has the space and implied groove of early Detroit techno. Insect incursions across its surface recall David Lynch lifting the rock on suburbia in the opening of Blue Velvet to examine what’s crawling around underneath. Heightening the pace, the elastic tech-funk of “t3.5” gets in your face and demands attention on the dancefloor. For Triumvirate manoeuvres from introspection to body moving and back, with Cosey Fanni Tutti and Nik Void uncovering tensions in the spaces between Chris Carter’s machine rhythms. A vocal emission here and an acid-melting eruption there – unexpected tones, unseen moments.

“t3.1” is a ghostly procession, a sustained living-metal howl. It traverses the haunted coastline of MR James’s “Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad”, the charged wasteland of Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker and the industrial backyard of Eraserhead. Carter Tutti Void avoid any sort of rousing finale. Instead, “t3.6” simply occurs after the storm, its flotsam and jetsam the radioactive remains of acid house, deconstructed industrial workouts and de-mapped emotional soundscapes. Ambiguous and direct; free and controlled; at a remove and in for the jugular. Triumvirate is a work so full of life and momentum that it feels wrong to accept it as an ending.