Throbbing Gristle’s Chris Carter announces first solo album in 17 years

Inspired by the BBC’s Radiophonic Workshop.

Throbbing Gristle co-founder Chris Carter is releasing his first solo album in 17 years on limited coloured 2xLP, this March on Mute.

Chris Carter’s Chemistry Lessons Volume One is heavily inspired by the music of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, the studio famous for pioneering early electronic music with pieces such as Delia Derbyshire’s Doctor Who theme. Its artwork is also inspired by classic BBC experimental LPs.

“If there’s an influence on the album, it’s definitely ’60s radiophonic,” Carter explained. “Over the last few years I’ve also been listening to old English folk music, almost like a guilty pleasure, and so some of tracks on the album hark back to an almost ingrained DNA we have for those kinds of melodies.”

You can hear the first single and opening track ‘Blissters’, which offers a first taste of the album’s hyper-melodic electronic sound and distorted vocals, some of which were developed with late Throbbing Gristle and Coil founder Chris “Sleazy” Christopherson:

“Sleazy and I had worked together on ways of developing a sort of artificial singing using software and hardware. This was me trying to take it a step further,” he explains. “I’ve taken lyrics, my own voice or people’s voices from a collection that I’d put together with Sleazy, and I’ve chopped them up and done all sorts of weird things with them.”

The vinyl variant, which comes on limited “frost bite blue” and “ash grey” double LP, also includes a limited edition signed print.

Pre-order a copy here ahead of its 30th March release, and check out the track list below.

Tracklist

2 Tangerines

3 Nineteen 7

4 Cernubicua

5 Pillars of Wah

6 Modularity

7 Field Depth

8 Moon Two

9 Durlin

10 Corvus

11 Tones Map

12 Dust & Spiders

13 Gradients

14 Lab Test

15 Shildreke

16 Uysring

17 Ghosting

18 Noise Floor

19 Post Industrial

20 Rehndim

21 Roane

22 Time Curious Glows

23 Ars Vetus

24 Hobbs End

25 Inkstain