PSYCHIC TV - FORCE THE HAND OF CHANCE @ 40

 

Marking its 40th anniversary today is the debut LP from Psychic TV, Force The Hand Of Chance, which was released on December 11th, 1982. As well as confounding the expectations of Throbbing Gristle fans, the album, along with its accompanying bonus LP of acoustic ritual themes, contains the DNA for at lease a half dozen sub-genres of music which would evolve throughout the ‘80s. It also served as a calling card for the “anti-cult cult”, Thee Temple Ov Psychick Youth (TOPY), the pseudo-occult/paramilitary order which Genesis P-Orridge and Monte Cazzazza had been concocting since the late stages of TG.

After the demise of TG, Genesis P-Orridge shifted focus towards the creation of a new kind of intellectual and spiritual network which would focus on personal development through revitalized pagan rituals and magickal techniques largely related to theories & practices developed by Aleister Crowley and his contemporaries. Evidence of this work first surfaced on the 1981 TG 12” of Discipline, which included the phrase “Marching music for Psychic Youth” below one of Sleazy’s photos of a knife holding young lad on the back. The initial conception of the organization included prescribed manners of dress and grooming in order to affect a kind of paramilitary-meets-religious aesthetic, including the grey clothing, priest collars and shaved heads. These were adorned with emblems like the Psychick Cross, designed by Gen, and other arcane occult symbols.

In the immediate aftermath of TG’s “termination”, Gen had little interest in pursuing music and was prepared to give it up in favor of writing and visual arts. It was only through the dogged insistence of Alternative TV band member, Alex Fergusson, that the focus would return to that medium. Alex took some poetry of Gen’s and created music for it and that was enough for Gen to realize there was a new opportunity to do something different from TG. The two combined the names of their individual projects to come up with “Psychic TV”, which would function as the propaganda arm of TOPY. Also, the “TV” component was key to them being more than a “band”. By enlisting Peter Christopherson into the project, thanks to his developing interest in video production while working with the Hipgnosis design firm, they envisioned PTV becoming an actual media outlet and even a proper TV channel at some point, producing not only music, but visual content: from documentaries to music videos to ambient TV. This was rather visionary as it was years before the development of subscription TV services and specialty channels. Cable TV was only just beginning, but the writing was on the wall for where it could go.

Because of the notoriety of Throbbing Gristle, when Psychic TV began looking for a label to release their music and videos, they came to the attention of "Stevo" (Stephen Pearce) at Some Bizarre Records. He offered them a contract and financed the production of their debut LP and its followup, Dreams Less Sweet. It was a relationship which would ultimately result in PTV including "Stevo, pay us what you owe us" comments for years afterwards on their LP liner notes. Apparently he had a habit of not paying bands royalties from record sales.

Regardless of future disputes, unlike TG’s process of doing everything themselves, from running a label to sustaining their own recording studio facility, PTV now had a budget to actually utilize professional recording facilities & engineers and even take advantage of some state of the art experimental recording tools. This included the “Zuccarelli Holophonic" TM recording system, which replicated 3D hearing via a two channel process that emulated how the human body picks up sound. The stereo sound pickup system was housed in an actual body which you could place in any position and then have it pick up the sound precisely as a real person would hear it in the room. Moving around the room would create three dimensional soundscapes for the listener, particularly when monitored over good quality speakers or headphones. This process would be employed for both albums produced for Some Bizarre, with the liner notes boasting that “no microphones” (of a conventional sort) were used for the recording.

Musically, Alex was the key driver of the compositions and arrangements and he was about as far away from Chris Carter’s electronics and technology as you could get. Alex was more rooted in folk and Velvet Underground influences, but was able to go outside these by bringing in elements of “spaghetti western” Morricone style motifs, pop ballads and even a solid funk groove. As a result, the main LP offers up a seeming hodgepodge of superficially disconnected styles, yet somehow they all work together to create a distinct whole.

The opening track, Just Drifting, announces PTV’s intent to separate from the past as distinctly as possible. It’s a gentle, acoustic guitar driven, folksy ballad inspired by Gen becoming father to little Carresse. I can imagine some people simply couldn’t grasp the shift from screeching “WE HATE YOU LITTLE GIRLS” to Gen softly crooning a lullaby for his new baby. And the singing was pretty much on key and melodic, completely upending theories that Gen wasn’t capable of mustering a proper vocal. Though it starts off soft and dreamy, the album is not without its barbs and sharp edges and its construction is thoroughly subversive, once you get over the initial shock of its seductively soothing intro. Terminus is cinematic in its sonic scope with its twanging guitars, but the lyric is deeply disturbing and the piece eventually erupts into a wall of terrifying noise before again subsiding into a gentle coda. Stolen Kisses offers up some genuine pop tunefulness with Soft Cell’s Marc Almond guesting on vocals. The other key album highlight is the booty busting Ov Power, which offers up one of the most solid post-punk/funk dance grooves of the era, verging into PiL territory akin to This Is Not a Love Song. The theme of the tune is more visceral, however, as it extols the virtues and efficacy of the orgasm and its viscus byproduct in relation to magickal rituals and sigilization, a practice promoted by TOPY for manifesting one's true will. The album is wrapped up by a full on recruitment poster of a song featuring muted marching music underpinning a proclamation read by TOPY spokesman, notorious tattoo and piercing artist Mr. Sebastian, defining the motives and objectives of “The Temple”. A video produced for the track shows the spokesman at a podium, but it's not Mr. Sebastian, but rather film maker Derek Jarman acting as body double.

The bonus LP, Themes, which was included with the first 5000 copies of the album, along with a poster of Gen & Sleazy in full TOPY regalia, offered listeners a more singular kind of audio experience as it provided “functional” music to be used in the enactment of personal magickal rituals. A variety of ritual instruments including various hand drums, thigh bone trumpets, bicycle wheels, bells and occasional piano were employed to create an evolving soundtrack for practical ritual application. The text on the back of the poster included instructions for use along with cautions on being prepared for the potentially unpredictable effects of one’s efforts. As a listening experience, it’s a dissociating, transcendental collection of primal sounding improvisations which are completely different from the material offered on the main LP.

Upon its release, reactions were decidedly mixed as many from the TG fan camp were knocked sideways by the album’s complete departure from TG’s wall of noise & use of electronics and synthesizers. Those elements weren’t completely missing, but they were only accents. The main aesthetic of the album was deceptively more conventional in some regards, though undercut by excursions into experimentation. I first bought the double LP version, 2nd hand, in late 1984 after becoming obsessed with TG in the wake of a particularly transformative LSD experience. My initial reaction was like most TG fans, taken aback by the total disconnect, superficially, from what I’d come to expect from P-Orridge. However, I’ve always been partial to having my expectations of an artist challenged and it didn’t take long for me to be able to warp my head around the method to this new madness and fall in love with the album and the Themes bonus LP.

Over the ensuing years, it’s been reissued in a variety of often dubious editions, some lifted from vinyl and even the so-called “official” remasters have failed to comprehend the dynamics of the original masters, normalizing the audio levels on some connective elements and compromising their impact. I’ve yet to encounter an edition which has corrected this error. Themes has been released separately in a number of editions itself, further adding to the confusion over trying to assemble a good quality contemporary edition. Its legacy, however, remains as a remarkable signpost of things to come in the world of alternative music in the years following its release. It defies trendiness and can still hold up to modern listening. It remains, along with its followup, Dreams Less Sweet, some of the best PTV would ever offer, at least from this incarnation and for my preferences.