First, some introductions. Cosey Fanni Tutti – her name is a pun on the borderline misogynist Mozart opera Così fan tutte (literally “that’s what women do”) – is a multimedia artist who first made her reputation as part of 1970s art collective COUM Transmissions and their sonic heirs, Throbbing Gristle. Her 2017 memoir, Art Sex Music, was as shocking as it was celebrated, recounting a lifetime of challenging the mainstream through industrial music and eyebrow-raising art. It also laid horribly bare how abusive and controlling her long-ago former partner was: Throbbing Gristle’s far more lionised irritant-in-chief, Genesis P-Orridge (who died in 2020).
Delia Derbyshire should require no thumbnail sketch. Often the sole woman at the BBC’s famed Radiophonic Workshop, she was in great part responsible for the Doctor Who theme tune as well as numerous other pieces of incidental music. A lack of recognition, for electronic music generally and her own compositions, stymied her in her lifetime. To add injury to the insult of men taking the credit for her work, this maths and music whiz had a complex personal life, in which alcohol, snuff and ill-chosen romantic partners also compromised the expression of her talents.
