Hailing from Hull, North England, Cosey Fanni Tutti (real name, Christine Carol Newby) is an English musician and performance artist, primarily known for her work in avant-garde industrial noise outfit Throbbing Gristle. She first came to prominence when she founded the performance art collective COUM Transmissions in 1969 with Genesis P-Orridge. The project lasted until 1976 and enraged the British press due to the controversial and confrontational nature of their performance pieces. Tutti's contribution to the project took it to new heights, transforming it from a purely musical project to a more eclectic one which also focused on exhibitions, dance, and street theater. She spent two years with the collective creating the "Prostitution" project, which focused on aspects of the pornographic and sex industries. It took place at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in Central London in 1975 and was largely influenced by her erstwhile career as a stripper, during which she also dabbled with performance art. 1975 also saw her begin Throbbing Gristle with P-Orridge, Peter Christopherson, and Chris Carter. The group was essentially an extension of the ideas explored within COUM Transmissions and debuted at the aforementioned "Prostitution" performance, which also marked the end of the COUM project. Throbbing Gristle was arguably more focused on music than the previous project and became synonymous with the London punk and industrial scenes throughout the late '70s and early '80s. Their performances remained controversial due to the horrific and sexual imagery projected during their performances. Tutti and Throbbing Gristle put out several releases in the following years before dissolving in 1981 and she and Carter began a new project the same year called Chris & Cosey. They also released their debut album Heartbeat in 1981 and went on to put out a number of albums throughout the '80s and '90s. 1983 saw the release of Tutti's first solo effort Time to Tell. After the new millennium arrived, Tutti and Carter changed the name of Chris & Cosey to Carter Tutti and marked the reinvention with the Cabal album in 2004. December of that year saw Tutti rejoin Throbbing Gristle as part of a reunion performance for the All Tomorrow's Parties festival. Both Tutti and the collective went on to put out several more releases over the following years before coming to an end in 2010 after P-Orridge left the project. In 2012, Tutti and Carter teamed up with Nik Colk Void to create Carter Tutti Void and released two albums; 2012's Transverse and 2015's f(x). In 2017, she released her biography, Art. Sex. Music while also working on new solo material. Her second solo LP, Tutti, arrived in late 2018. ~ Rob Wacey