 Tutti writes with anger and passion when she talks about the abuse she suffered from Genesis, a frustration which is echoed by the patronising and condescending attitudes that both Derbyshire and Kempe ran up against in their attempts to realise their art. Cosey Fanni Tutti – Re-Sisters, The Lives and Recordings of Delia Derbyshire, Margery Kempe & Cosey Fanni Tutti (2022) Publisher : Faber & Faber; Main edition (18 Aug. 2022) Language : English Hardcover : 400 pages ISBN-10 : 0571362184 ISBN-13 : 978-0571362189 A Book Review by Jonathan Thornton “I see myself, Delia and Margery as ‘pockets of resistance’ – despite often being targets for derision, striving for and actively seeking the as yet undiscovered, to try and find a solution to the restless, unquantifiable passion and emotional expression we call creativity. I’m not alone in my notion that people who feel ‘other’ play a part in society as a means of achieving their goal to be themselves.” Cosey Fanni Tutti’s first book, Art Sex Music (2017), chronicled her life and career as a transgressive performance artist and avant-garde musician, from her early life and upbringing through her work as a founding member of performance art collective COUM Transmissions and industrial music pioneers Throbbing Gristle, her escape from her abusive relationship with TG’s Genesis P-Orridge to hook up with Chris Carter (also of TG), and her later work as an electronic music innovator as one half of Chris & Cosey and as a solo artist. Her second book, Re-Sisters, The Lives and Recordings of Delia Derbyshire, Margery Kempe & Cosi Fanni Tutti (2022), is an engaging mixture of memoir and biography, as Tutti reflects on her own life and that of two other pioneering women artists, the BBC Radiophonic electronic musician Delia Derbyshire and fifteenth century mystic Margery Kempe. Tutti chronicles the lives, struggles and obsessions of these three fascinating and understudied women, drawing intriguing parallels across three very different artistic lives in how Delia, Margery and Cosey all rebelled against the constraints of a patriarchal society in order to express themselves as artists and women. Re-Sisters is both a powerful and inspiring work of feminist reflection and a worthy addition to the works of one of the counterculture’s most consistently interesting and challenging figures. Tutti is excellently placed to write about her subject matter. As a female pioneer of electronic music who struggled against the frustratingly traditional patriarchal restrictions of a counterculture that promised more to women, she and Delia Derbyshire have plenty in common already. Indeed, Tutti was selected to provide the soundtrack to Caroline Catz’s BBC Four docudrama Delia Derbyshire: The Myths and the Legendary Tapes (2020), and Tutti’s research on Derbyshire’s music and life for the soundtrack provided much of the inspiration for writing this book. The similarities between Tutti and Kempe may be less immediately clear, but Tutti makes a convincing argument. Kempe was the author of the first English-language autobiography, a fascinating and idiosyncratic text in which Kempe details her passionate Christian beliefs, her renouncing of her marriage to her husband so that she could explore her passionate relationship with Christ, her struggles against the church’s and the state’s attempts to curtail her unorthodox religious worship, and the epic pilgrimages she undertook in an era when travelling was not common for women. In Kempe, Tutti sees reflected another woman determined to live her unconventional life by her own rules in spite of the constraints a patriarchal society puts on her, a woman who seizes control of her own narrative through her own autobiographical writing, her method of “recording” and presenting her alternative lifestyle as both art and example. These similarities give Tutti a rhetorical scaffold around which to structure her book. Re-Sisters explores the lives of Delia Derbyshire and Margery Kempe. Both Derbyshire and Kemp are underchronicled enough that this is interesting in and of itself, but Re-Sisters isn’t just a biography of three remarkable women. Tutti is interested in the restrictions that society has placed on women, and how rebellious women have struggled against those restrictions in order to fulfil their artistic and personal desires. She is also interested in the creative process and how unique and pioneering individuals approach their work. Tutti’s own experience creating electronic music means that she has both the technical background and the artistic context to shed light on Derbyshire’s innovative use of tape loops, recordings and early synthesisers in her composition work for the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and by herself, and her access to Derbyshire’s archives over the course of writing the soundtrack to the documentary and writing this book allow her to speak authoritatively on Derbyshire’s creative processes. Similarly, Tutti has clearly researched in depth about Kempe’s writing, life and social context, and she wonderfully illuminates just how rebellious and freethinking a figure Kempe was by the standards of her time. Tutti’s atheism means that she does not share Kempe’s passionate interpretation of Christianity, but she can still appreciate Kempe’s determination to live her life the way that she wanted to, and the intense negotiations she undergoes with the heads of the church, her own husband and family, and the law enforcement of the day in order to do this. This gives her a very different, but no less profound, appreciation of Kempe’s life as an artistic performance and endeavour compared to her similarities with Derbyshire. Throughout Re-Sisters, Tutti manages to capture the essence of the women she writes about wonderfully. She is enthusiastic about their incredible achievements and pioneering efforts, but also clearly has a good sense of both Derbyshire and Kempe as real people, acknowledging their personal difficulties and struggles as much as their triumphs. She writes with an engaging, conversational style that is approachable and highly readable, whilst leading the reader through her arguments with clarity and skill. By the end of the book, one feels like one has gotten to know Tutti, Derbyshire and Kempe like friends. Tutti writes with anger and passion when she talks about the abuse she suffered from Genesis, a frustration which is echoed by the patronising and condescending attitudes that both Derbyshire and Kempe ran up against in their attempts to realise their art. In particular, her exploration of how the 60s hippy counterculture, for all its talk of freedom, still demanded that women like Tutti and Derbyshire accept passive roles, is incisive and powerful. Derbyshire’s incredible and unique musical talents were frequently taken for granted, with her iconic work on the Doctor Who theme tune downgraded from composer to arranger, meaning she missed out on untold royalties. Tutti explores how similar patronising attitudes have led to male colleagues and journalists belittling her own pioneering work. Similarly, Kempe faced a long history of the male religious figures running the church refusing to take her seriously, despite the strength of her outspoken devotion. Re-Sisters is as much a manifesto as a work of biography, a celebration of creativity and innovation that demands that men do better when it comes to recognising the creative brilliance of women. Re-Sisters: The Lives and Recordings of Delia Derbyshire, Margery Kempe and Cosey Fanni Tutti From the acclaimed author of Art Sex Music comes a vital meditation on womanhood, creativity and self-expression, and a revelatory exploration into the lives of three visionary artists. 'A fascinating tale of the interlinking lives of three legendary trailblazers.' SALENA GODDEN 'Re-sisters emanates an enthralling power.' JUDE ROGERS, MOJO 'Cosey Fanni Tutti has lived the life and has the stories to tell: not just hers, but those of two other still unheralded female pioneers.' JON SAVAGE Myself , Delia and Margery - a trinity of the sacred and profane , sinners and saints of a kind. Three defiant women with our individual, unconventional attitude to life. Untameable spirits, progressive thinkers living within the inherent societal constraints of our times. In 2018, boundary-breaking visual and sonic artist Cosey Fanni Tutti received a commission to write the soundtrack to a film about Delia Derbyshire, the pioneering electronic composer who influenced the likes of Aphex Twin and the Chemical Brothers. While researching Delia's life, Cosey became immersed in Derbyshire's story and uncovered some fascinating parallels with her own life. At the same time Cosey began reading about Margery Kempe, the 15th century mystic visionary who wrote the first English language autobiography. Re-sisters is the story of three women consumed by their passion for life, a passion they expressed through music, art and lifestyle; they were undaunted by the consequences they faced in pursuit of enriching their lives, and fiercely challenged the societal and cultural norms of their time. 'An impeccably researched meditation on womanhood as viewed through the lives of three firebrands.' FIONA STURGES, GUARDIAN 'Awe-inspiring. Read these revelatory portraits: this book is for anybody who wants to discover the work of three women who, without fanfare, have enriched our world.' ROBERT WYATT 'Passionate, original and fiercely defiant.' RUPERT THOMSON CHECK OUT TODAY'S OTHER ARTICLES BELOW
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