Psychic TV - 8Transmissions8

 #Psychic TV #Genesis P-Orridge #industrial #experimental #acid house #post-punk #ambient house #neo-psychedelia #electronica #industrial dance #ex-Throbbing Gristle #performance art #video art #experimental video #Temple ov Psychick Youth #VHS rip 

A watershed time for Brion Gysin and William Burroughs was in Paris, in the decade of the
1960s. It was the only time Gysin ever earnestly garnered recognition for his creative efforts. While Gysin might be considered a jack-of-all-trades and master of none, his eminent energy paved the way through numerous monumental projects and seminal discoveries. In the decades prior to his relationship with Burroughs, he’d exhibited his works alongside the likes of Duchamp and Picasso; invited to be a Surrealist participant by Dalí - later booted from the group by Breton. But it was his association with Burroughs, always his biggest cultural advocate, which helped usher his artistic ventures into popular culture. So what’s this have to do with contemporary dance subculture? If the interconnectedness isn’t already obvious, move along to Act II. Enter Genesis P-Orridge. During the Paris years, P-Orridge had become a correspondent with Burroughs, and eventually a friend. And, of course, friends with Gysin. P-Orridge was a performance artist who’d exchange art mail with other interesting correspondance acquaintances like Burroughs and Monte Cazzazza. He also became pals with draggish film-maker Derek Jarman, for whom he scored a few short film projects himself, and later with his band, the “original” Industrial outfit, Throbbing Gristle. P-Orridge had ideas of his own, even if they were enmeshed with those of Gysin and Burroughs. His ideas included the dynamics inherent within ritual magick (not unlike the practices of Aleister Crowley), the necessity of trance-induced creative expression (such as in the art of Austin Osman Spare), and the immediatism of organized performance and media as weapons against social control. Shocking the hell out of crowds with the self-mutilation, enema-farting, lighted-candle-vaginal-masturbation performances of art troupe Coum Transmissions only paved the way for the all-out sensory onslaught of Throbbing Gristle’s live sets. And when that act diminished in 1981, P-Orridge and ex-Throbbing Gristle cohort Peter Christopherson (founder of Coil) not only joined forces with Alternative TV members to form musick group Psychick Television, but they also established a “non-dogmatic” ritualistic religious order: The Temple Ov Psychick Youth (TOPY). And to finalize the concrete front of anti-establishment propaganda, they created their own television network - Psychic TV, which is the working title of all of P-Orridge’s collaborative projects up through the present. “TG don’t get involved with the causes and cliches of The Great White Liberal consciousness, the dogmas and demonstrations of emotional hang-ups and guilt complexes (sexism, racism, no nukism, thisism, thatism) thinking them red herrings introduced to divert people from The Horrible Truth - into useless, fruitless ‘activism’.” Psychic TV didn’t conform to predictable conventions any more than TG had. Musically, the group explored the continuing usage of drum machines, tape loops, and electronics in combination with live instrumentation—a tactic which had become a standard in the music of TG. However, stylistically, PTV delved into numerous genres - Hyperdelic Rock, Muzack, Noise, and yes, Acid House and Techno - remixing and reinventing themselves sonically onstage and off. P-Orridge began to dabble in more contemporary video production for the day, creating sprawling, wild psychedelic imagery which moved in time to the music and while adopting some very MTV-ish trends, consistently moving beyond them. On a U.S. tour during 1986, P-Orridge & Co. visited a Chicago record shop, asking shop clerk (the now world famous deejay) Derrick Carter what the weirdest most underground sounds were in the shop. “Oh, that’d be the Acid,” Carter told them. Thinking the moniker referred to the drug and expecting psychedelic rock music, P-Orridge bought the entire stock. Upon returning to England and listening to the records, he was pleasantly surprised to discover that the music was instead tweaky, heavily-filtered electronic washes of sound with repetitive beats. As a result, Psychic TV began to dabble with the style and by 1987 released a now-legendary Acid House classic: “Tune In, Turn On Thee Acid House”. The single gained immediate popularity both in Europe and abroad, and foreshadowed the approach of the most important elements still lacking from the ecstatic dance culture in which Brion Gysin had once immersed himself.  From: https://www.deadlybuda.com/DeadlyType/deadlytype.pdf

Psychic TV - In The Nursery

 #Psychic TV #Genesis P-Orridge #industrial #experimental #acid house #post-punk #ambient house #neo-psychedelia #electronica #industrial dance #ex-Throbbing Gristle #performance art #video art

The prettiest song Genesis P-Orridge ever wrote was “The Orchids,” a simple, pastoral folky gem from Psychic TV’s 1983 album Dreams Less Sweet. It’s a far cry from the noisy electronic bastards that his previous band, Throbbing Gristle, so masterfully twisted into horrific shapes. And while TG certainly had their share of more melodic moments (“Hot on the Heels of Love” comes to mind), “The Orchids” is something different altogether, a gorgeously upbeat and, frankly normal, song, not to mention one whose very gorgeous intricacy seemed very much of another time. Not that it was ever released as a single, or promoted as such. Califone somewhat famously covered it on their 2006 album Roots and Crowns, but by then it was still something of an obscure, underground classic. Still, it’s a classic all the same.
The album it comes from, Dreams Less Sweet, is a bit more experimental and difficult on the whole. It’s not Throbbing Gristle difficult — that’s a level of audio antagonism that few artists can continue to muster over time, let alone one of the band’s original players. But P-Orridge, along with former bandmate Peter Christopherson, carved a similar path with Psychic TV, albeit one with a considerably different approach. That approach is a confusing and complicated, yet continually intriguing one on Dreams Less Sweet, an album that puts industrial pieces alongside a cappella chants, found sound, audio collage and the occasional true pop song. Dreams Less Sweet, then, isn’t a wholly inaccurate title. It does contain moments of sweetness, such as the glorious “The Orchids,” and the playful lullaby, “White Nights.” Yet by and large, it’s more nightmarish overall. Barking dogs and gunshots erupt in “Finale.” Clatters and stomps are met with unsettling drones in the 41-second “Botanica.” And distant sounds of chanting sidle up against ping-pong percussion and bassy piano in “Ancient Lights.” Let there be no question about it — this album is bizarre.
Then again, it’s very much part of P-Orridge’s M.O. H/er life has been spent as a provocateur, and Dreams Less Sweet accomplishes that handily, even more so because he does allow h/erself unexpected moments of beauty and simplicity. Yet the most unsettling moments on the album are those that are just musical enough to be alluring, but still somewhat terrifying in spite of it. Take “Eden 1,” whose introduction is a collage of ringing telephones, which give way to a plodding dirge and hissing, squealing sonics beneath P-Orridge’s narration. And “In the Nursery” is by far the moment in which Psychic TV most closely resembles Throbbing Gristle, howls and screeches creating a house of horrors while P-Orridge maintains a characteristically unhinged performance.  From: https://www.treblezine.com/psychic-tv-dreams-less-sweet-review/

The pioneering Psychic TV, co-founded in 1981 by the London performance artist and provocateur Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, was formed after the breakup of P-Orridge’s previous group, Throbbing Gristle, which arguably invented industrial music. Psychic TV’s sound started out chaotic and noisy, but it gradually came to embrace house music and catchy, melodic pop while maintaining Throbbing Gristle’s sharp edge and ritualistic ethos. Psychic TV was influential in pioneering the acid house genre, releasing several albums as fake compilations, as well as several under the Psychic TV banner. Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth was formed as an organization at the same time as the band. T.O.P.Y. was intended to be a magical order and the philosophical wing of Psychic TV, but also presented an image of being a cult-like fanclub for the group. P-Orridge left it in 1991. After breaking up in 1999, Psychic TV reformed as PTV3 with a new line-up in 2003. Psychic TV have released over one hundred full-length albums to date, and earned an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records for most records released in one year (1986).  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychic_TV