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.
