THROBBING GRISTLE - 20 JAZZ FUNK GREATS @ 45

 

Celebrating its 45th anniversary today is the third LP from Throbbing Gristle, 20 Jazz Funk Greats, which was released by the band's own Industrial Records imprint on December 10th 1979. While it was the group's most accessible record to date, it has also become recognized as one of the most insidiously subversive albums to ever come from the genre that Industrial Records gave a name.

Up until the release of 20 Jazz Funk Greats, TG had made a name for themselves through a series of brain crushing live performances and a couple of unclassifiable LPs, which combined segments of recordings from their live performances along with studio concoctions created using the primitive facilities of their Death Factory studio, located in the basement level at 10 Martello St, in Hackney. Their debut LP, Second Annual Report, was a dirge of electronic lo-fi noise that oozed and sputtered with a queasy murk of fuzz, bass throb and incidental jabs of seemingly random chaos. With their follow up single, United, they dabbled in a bit of techno-pop, and their next album had a range of styles, from creepy to ambient to churning to flat out noise. Little of it was particularly accessible, challenging the patience and the auditory senses of listeners. So when it came time to do their next album, the group were eager to confound the expectations of their audience and critics, because TG were nothing if not consummate contrarians.

The initial inspiration for the album came about because of a visit by Genesis with his mum, who asked him why he didn't do a "nice" record for a change. The comment stuck and the idea was brought back to the band to do something more ordered and structured, less noisy and more like a "pop" record. Of course this idea didn't merely sit at that level, as the band then began to turn the concept over and explore ways to subvert the format. They took every aspect of every song into consideration, as well as ideas for packaging and design.

For recording, this would be the first fully studio produced LP by the band, since both the previous LPs and single had incorporated live performance recordings. Peter Christopherson, who was working as a partner in the Hipgnosis design firm, had been involved in a cover design for Paul McCartney prior to TG beginning work on their new LP. Through this connection Peter managed to secure the loan of a 16 track recording system from McCartney. This allowed the group to achieve a recording quality they'd never had before, giving the new album production values far beyond the primitive results of their earlier works. They'd also managed to acquire a lot of new gear from Roland and its subsidiary brand BOSS, including drum machines, synthesizers, effects units and amplifiers. With all this new kit in tow, they were assured a sound on the new album miles ahead of where they'd got to before.

Musically, the construction of the album was carefully discussed and debated in terms of what kinds of tracks to have in which position on the album. For example, they knew they needed something a bit light and rhythmic to kick off each side of the record, choosing pieces like the title track and Hot On the Heels of Love. From there, they ran the gamut of styles from the pastoral beauty of Beachy Head and Walkabout to the perverse pulse of Persuasion to the grinding churn of Convincing People and What A Day. Yet even with the intensity cranked up, the clarity was never sacrificed.

Of course the massive cherry for this album was the impeccably deceptive cover graphics. The front photo depicts the band, smartly dressed in summer casuals, smiling vacantly in a grassy green field peppered with wild flowers, next to a barely perceptible cliff. Because of the cloud cover on the day of the photo shoot, it's not entirely obvious that they're next to a cliff, let alone that it's Beachy Head, a location notorious as a suicide hot spot. In fact, Sleazy commented that it was incredibly difficult to get the shot to look like a nice day and not gloomy because of the weather. He had to do a lot of careful processing of the photo to lighten it up. The group also rented a Range Rover vehicle to get out to the shoot, and made sure to include it in the photo as a status symbol, being as they were all the rage for the wealthy at the time, giving the group a false appearance of affluence. The album's title was an ironic joke as there was virtually nothing jazzy or funky about the record, and there were only 11 tracks, not 20. The idea was that the record should look like some innocuous discount bin pop LP you'd find you your local department store, something someone's gran might pick up out of curiosity, only to put it on the phonograph at home and find something unexpected instead.

With the album's release, critics and fans were confused as to where TG were going and what they were aiming to achieve, though after the initial shock, both groups began to appreciate the subtleties of the record. As time passed, people noticed its prescience in terms of anticipating music like acid house techno with tracks like Hot On the Heels of Love, which was created as a song Cosey might strip to when she was doing her striptease gigs. As Industrial music has evolved and grown, 20 Jazz Funk Greats remains a regular touch stone release for the genre, nearly always included in any "best of" lists as a nod to the group who effectively invented the genre.

THROBBING GRISTLE - A SOUVENIR OF CAMBER SANDS @ 20

 

Marking 20 years since its release is the official live recording of Throbbing Gristle's second re-union performance, which was executed and immediately released on December 3rd, 2004. The event was part of a festival held by All Tomorrow's Parties at the Camber Sands resort on Britain's southern coast. The event had originally been planned to occur in May of that year, though it had to be cancelled at the last minute for reasons related to the organizers, having nothing to do with TG. TG still went ahead and performed a reunion show at the Astoria in London, on May 16th, honouring any ticket holders for the cancelled festival. The results of that show were recorded for the RE:TG video, which was eventually released in the TGV box set of the TG video archive in 2007. The initial intent of the RE:TG event was that TG would perform a single, "one and done" concert, with the band returning to their various other projects after that. However, with the festival rescheduled, TG were persuaded to regroup yet again for "one more" show, also promoted as the group's "final" appearance together.

The timing of the show was somewhat cast in a shadow thanks to the unexpected demise of Peter Christopherson's creative and life partner, Jhon Balance (Geoff Rushton), who had fallen to his death from the balcony of their home on November 13th. In the video from the Astoria gig, Balance can be seen at the foot of the stage during the finale of Discipline, rocking back and forth, evidently in the thralls of some transcendental moment. One can only imagine how difficult it was for Sleazy to perform so soon after that tragedy. In the video for the Camber Sands show, also included in TGV, Sleazy wears one of the infamous Coil fur suits that the band had recently used for some of their own live shows, as a tribute to Balance. You can also observe at one point in the performance, the emotional intensity of the moment becomes too much for Sleazy and he is overcome with grief and begins visibly sobbing. It's an incredibly touching moment of vulnerability.

The Camber Sands performance offered much of the same sort of mix of old and new material as the Astoria show, though there is a moment when the band acknowledges the loss of Balance with a brief tribute from Genesis. The principal innovation of the show was the fact that it was being recorded for immediate release on a double CD-R set that would be instantly duplicated at the show for those who wished to purchase a copy on site. Additional copies of the recording could be ordered directly from Mute Records. The resulting double album would be something of a rarity afterwards, until it was finally reissued in 2019 in a properly mastered, professionally manufactured double CD set, complete with track indexes, which were missing from the CD-R version. The benefit of proper mastering also remedied the issue of the overall lack of loudness on the CD-Rs.

Though this was supposed to be the final TG reunion show, it would not be long until the temptation to continue resulted in additional live performances, along with the group returning to the studio to record a new album, 2007's Part Two. The reinvigorated TG would continue on for six more years, until abruptly coming to an end again at the end of 2010, first with the sudden departure of Genesis P-Orridge after the first gig of of an EU mini tour, then with the sudden death of Peter Christopherson.

As a document of the band at the threshold of a new era of activity, A Souvenir of Camber Stands offers up an exceptional collection of music from a collective feeling the surge of creativity from a fresh influx of inspiration. The fact the group managed to reconnect at all after 23 years apart was something of a minor miracle. That they could find a new kind of relevance for themselves, completely sidestepping any blush of being a nostalgia act, was a testament to their integrity and artistic abilities.

PSYCHIC TV - HACIENDA @ 40

 

Forty years ago today, on November 5th, 1984, Psychic TV played at the Haçienda nightclub in Manchester. Run by Factory Records main man, Tony Wilson, the club was notorious as one of the most pivotal venues in the UK during the late 1980s and early 1990s, becoming a key venue for the Acid House & techno music scenes. But before it really started to click as a place for DJs and Ecstasy fuelled dancers, it was initially opened as a financially struggling alternative music club, partially funded by the profits from New Order's Blue Monday single.

Psychic TV's appearance there in 1984 captured the band as it was undergoing the first of its major stylistic transmutations of its career. The group's live performances during its first few years were predominantly noisy, tribal-industrial happenings, often taking on the disposition of rallies, veiled in pseudo militaristic occult symbolic trappings. But by 1984, the group were starting to develop a kind of psychedelic rock that Genesis P-Orridge dubbed "Hyperdelic" music. The group on stage became more conventional, incorporating a regular drummer and bass guitar along with Alex Fergusson's guitar, in order to perform more conventional rock music. This particular performance is notable for being the gig where Godstar was first performed. This song would become the group's most successful single once it was fully developed in the studio and released in 1985.

The group membership for this gig included founding members, Genesis P-Orridge & Alex Fergusson, Paula P-Orridge (uncredited on the reissues of the recording), John Gosling and Paul A Reeson. In addition to Godstar, the set included versions of Roman P., Southern Comfort, Thee Starlit Mire, Unclean and I Like You. The performance was recorded and initially released on cassette in an unofficial Temple Ov Psychick Youth edition in 1984. It would be remastered and reissued on CD for the first time in 2013 by Cold Spring Records. A double LP red vinyl edition was also issued by Let Them Eat Vinyl in 2014.

PSYCHIC TV - UNCLEAN (12") @ 40

 

Released in August of 1984, Psychic TV's 12" EP, Unclean, turns 40 years old this month. It was the first title issued by Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth's own label imprint, Temple Records, which was inaugurated following the acrimonious demise of their relationship with Stevo's Some Bizzare label, who released PTV's first two LPs, and the single, Just Drifting. Unclean is also the group's first release following the equally conflicted departure of co-founder and former Throbbing Gristle partner, Peter "Sleazy" Christopherson, and his then romantic partner, Geoff Rushton (aka John/Jhon Balance). They departed principally due to their concerns regarding Genesis P-Orridge turning TOPY into a "cult of personality" and would go on to form the widely influential project, Coil.

Without the backing of a major label, leaving the group owed significant sums from their previous releases, budgets for production and studio time were limited, but the founding of an independent label meant that all the proceeds from record sales would belong to TOPY/PTV, and creative control of the product would be entirely under their purview. Given P-Orridge's experience with Industrial Records during the TG days, this was not unfamiliar territory. It would ultimately provide the group with a great latitude when it came to the diversity of their output, from the most bizarre experimentation, to a charting pop single that would help finance a planned film production, though these plans would be eventually derailed by their manager absconding with the single's profits. Still, their own label would help them bounce back from this by virtue of the live series of LPs.

Getting back to the Unclean EP, side A's title track kicks it off with an extended, near ten minute long sluggish dirge that is not too far off from Metal Box era PiL in terms of its repetitive drum loop, throbbing minimal bass and piercing, atonal guitar(?) feedback. Genesis wails atop the cacophonous musical backing with a diatribe against Christianity, declaring its "Saviour" to be a perversion of morality and "obscene". The run-out groove etching on the vinyl exacerbates the blasphemy of the song by declares the record to be "CURSED BY GOD". In comparison to the relatively accessible and tuneful music contained in their first two albums for Some Bizzare, Unclean is nearly a full return to the aggressive bite of TG at its prime, landing comfortably in proximity to something akin to Discipline as far as rhythmic assaults go.

But the mood changes abruptly for the flip side of the record, which includes two ambient compositions that seem to feature P-Orridge as the principal performer. The first is a soundtrack from a Derek Jarman short film, Mirrors, which may be one of the most sublimely beautiful pieces of music PTV ever put to record. It is built from a meandering kaleidoscopic collage of gentle piano improvisations that seem to reflect and refract off each other, perfectly representing the abstract mylar dancing lights of the 8mm film for which it was created. The piece bares a striking resemblance to the fifth and closing movement of the final TG studio album, Journey Through a Body. The section titled, Oltre La Morte / Birth And Death, is also an improvised piano meditation, and likely an early rendition of this conception that now finds its full flower in the PTV recording. I also seem to recall coming across an old COUM era recording of Genesis on the piano performing what sounded like an even more primitive rendition of this theme, so it's likely it was lurking around in various incarnations for years before this most complete realization of its intent.

The third piece, Unclean Monks, is a vocal choral piece created by Genesis repeatedly singing the word "Jesus", layered on multiple tracks to create a sombre, sacred sounding choir reminiscent of medieval monks performing Gregorian chants. As sacrilegious as the A-side is, it's as if Genesis is seeking salvation and repentance with this closing composition, or else and more likely, codifying his curse upon the iconography.

The cover for the single featured the striking graphic template that Temple Records would utilize for many of their "Library" series releases, with it's black and grey primary layout accented by an eye catching red banner. Seeing these releases pop up in the shops was a great way to inspire collectors as aficionados like myself were eager to ensure a complete set of these matching releases. As the label built up its catalogue, seeing all these coordinated artifacts together engendered a kind of satisfying sense of accomplishment in their acquisition. Rather good marketing, I must say. Unclean has remained one of my all time favourite PTV releases, showcasing the group at both their most extreme and confrontational and seductively alluring states.

PSYCHIC TV - TEMPORARY TEMPLE @ 40

 

Recorded at a guerrilla performance on July 28th, 1984, Psychic TV's Temporary Temple turns 40 years old today. Released in January of 1988 as volume 9 in thee 23 live album series, it included the final voucher necessary to send in to Temple Records in order to receive the free 10th album, which turned out to be a studio album picture disc, colloquially referred to as "Album 10", or "Psychedelic Violence".

The Temporary Temple recording itself was captured as part of a Temple ov Psychick Youth tribal ceremony conducted at a squatted derelict circular building in Drayton Park, London. The event nearly didn't take place as police were spotted in the area prior to the attendees setting up for the performance, but the coast was eventually considered clear and gear and facilities were set up for the show. Musically, the material captured for the record encompasses purely improvised extended instrumental jams, with the LP only identifying each side with a symbol rather than a title. The music is essentially tribal ambience, with percussion and guitar tonalities interwoven across the side long pieces. Nothing approaching recognizable songs is included in the release. Its intent and purpose were entirely ritualistic in nature, functioning as a rallying call to TOPY members in the area to gather and celebrate their community.

THROBBING GRISTLE - RE:TG | TG NOW @ 20

 

May 16th marks the 20th anniversary of the first reunion performance in 2004 by Throbbing Gristle, after a near exact 23 year gap since the band's original "mission" was "terminated". The event also saw the release of a brand new mini album of studio recordings by the group, TG NOW, which was available for sale at the show and sold online in a limited edition afterwards. 

 

The unlikely reunion of TG began in 2002 with the release of the massive TG24 CD box set of live recordings, which was effectively a reissue of the group's self released cassette box set, 24 Hours of TG. The process of putting that release together facilitated communications between the group members which had not occurred since their breakup. An art exhibit of TG memorabilia, custom gear and other artifacts offered an opportunity for the group to get together in the same place for the first time in years. Things went well enough that Mute proposed the group reform and an agreement was made to do a single, one-off performance as part of All Tomorrow's Parties annual music festival to be held in May of 2004 at the Camber Sands resort. A great deal of publicity was put into the event, with TG fans bursting with excitement at the possibility of the band's reunion, but those balloons were burst when the news broke that the event had to be cancelled due to organizational issues with the promoter, a situation that was entirely outside the control of the band. 

 

But TG had built up too much momentum by this point to simply let this reunion be stifled by circumstance. They'd issued a collection of remixes, Mutant TG, and a new "Best Of" album, The Taste of TG, and had even recorded new music to release on special limited edition CDs and perform at the show. So the group quickly managed to secure an alternate venue at the Astoria in London where they could perform their set on their own on May 16th. The event was promoted as something rather similar to when they recorded Heathen Earth in front of an invited audience in their Studio back in 1980. For this, guests who had purchased tickets for RE:TG could use them for the Astoria show and, during the event, no one was allowed to enter or leave the building while the band performed, and the entire performance would be recorded and videotaped. 

 

The band had prepared a set that mixed brand new compositions with impromptu live improvisations and a sprinkling of classics from their original incarnation. Above all, they were determined that this would NOT be about nostalgia or looking back. This, as the album of new recordings proclaimed, was TG NOW! They were taking all of their skills and experience they'd gathered from the intervening 23 years and applying them to the essence of the band in order to create something fresh and new, Industrial Music for the 21st century. Their determination paid off and when you observe the audience reaction to the band in the live video, you can see why. There are people who are visibly moved to tears by the immense sound of the band as their pulverizing PA system throttled them with sounds. 

 

The TG NOW CD clearly demonstrated that there was still chemistry between the four members and that the sound of TG in the 21st century was capable of going in some surprising new directions. The tools had changed and the level of skills had evolved, but nonetheless, there was that "thing", that recognizable essence coming through that was unmistakably Throbbing Gristle, a whole that was unquestionably greater than the sum of its parts. 

 

Though this was intended to be a one-off performance, ATP eventually rescheduled their festival at Camber Sands for December of that year, though tragedy would befall the group with the accidental death of Jhon Balance (Geoff Ruston) after a drunken tumble from his home's balcony that summer. The group would then embark on a renewed collaboration that would last until the end of 2010, abruptly coming to a halt when Genesis P-Orridge walked away from a European tour without explanation. That event was followed by Peter Christopherson's sudden death in Bangkok a few weeks later, effectively sealing the group's fate and terminating its renewed mission, yet again. 

 

MUTANT THROBBING GRISTLE @ 20

 

Marking 20 years since its release is the Throbbing Gristle remix compilation, Mutant Throbbing Gristle (aka, Mutant TG), which was released on March 29th, 2004. The project was conceived as a way to help celebrate the unexpected reunion of TG for what was intended to be a one-off performance at the ATP event, RE:TG. That event was cancelled due to unforeseen organizational issues with ATP, but TG, nonetheless, were intent on performing again, so they scheduled a replacement performance at the Astoria on May 16 of 2004.

Rescheduling aside, after the release of the two mammoth and exhaustive live box sets, TG24 (2002) & TG+, issued in January of 2004, it only seemed appropriate to help refresh people's appreciation for TG by issuing a compilation album collecting various remixes of classic TG tunes, created by friends and admirers of the band. The collection featured remixes by Carl Craig, Hedonastik (Marc Harrison, Marc Rowntree, Steve Keeble), Andrew Weatherall & Keith Tenniswood (Two Lone Swordsmen), Bryan Black & Olivier Grasset (Motor), Carter Tutti & Simon Ratcliffe. The set brought some dance floor friendly funk to tracks like United, Hot On the Heels of Love, Persuasion, What A Day, Hamburger Lady and Still Walking. Along with a soon to be released "best of" compilation, The Taste of TG (issued on May 4th, 2004), this refresher course in Industrial music signified the beginning of a new phase of activity for the band, a renaissance that would carry them through to the end of the decade, with new studio albums, numerous live performances, art installations and a variety ephemeral novelty products, until it all fell apart again when Gen bailed and then Sleazy died at the end of 2010.

D.O.A - THE THIRD AND FINAL REPORT OF THROBBING GRISTLE @ 45

Released on December 4th, 1978, the second studio album from Throbbing Gristle, D.O.A. - The Third and Final Report, is turning 45 years old today. After the relative success of their debut album, Second Annual Report, and it's follow up single, United b/w Zyklon B Zombie, TG were able to finance their next album on the sold out sales of their first, which they'd pressed in an initial run of less than a thousand copies. It wasn't a lot, but it was enough of a fiscal foothold that they were able to put a bit more into their recording process & production values than had been possible with the first album, including some actual multi-track recording and a colour LP sleeve.

By moving beyond the mostly live recordings of the first album, it was an opportunity to explore the band's sonic potential in a more controlled environment. There were still live excerpts on D.O.A., but there was more emphasis on crawling out of the murk and achieving some clarity with their sound. They also decided to reveal themselves individually within the context of the band, offering up solo tracks from each of the four members. Peter Christopherson concocted a pastiche of surveillance recordings and found sounds, Genesis plucked out a violin based existential suicidal lament, Cosey invoked homey intimacy with the sounds of children playing and a remarkably pastoral guitar, and Chris put together an electronica tribute to ABBA's Dancing Queen.

Overall, the album offered up a bizarre and rather disjointed collection of musing and examples of their controversial nature. Death Threats made a track out of their answering machine tape, capturing agitators leaving their condemnations for the group. I.B.M. was a harbinger of technological tyranny, E-Coli warned of a bacterial apocalypse and Hamburger Lady, the album's crown jewel, told the tale of a burn victim's unending torment. All in, the album may have been a bit of a dishevelled assemblage of impressions, but it certainly held together as an expression of the group's individual and collective obsessions.

The cover photo and calendar poster, included with the first 1000 copies, added to the controversy of the release by showing a young girl in a potentially exploitative situation, deliberately left ambiguous by the group in order to breed a sense of vague unease with the product. Other packaging games included having the second 1000 copies of the album pressed with false track markers (the "bands" visible on a vinyl disc) to give it the appearance of having fifteen tracks of exactly equal length and a short sixteenth track. The official TG discography called this pressing the "Structuralist Spirals" edition.

Because of the intensity of so many of its individual elements, the album may be one of TG's most challenging releases, outside the overt rawness of their purely live albums. It's not casual listening or background music and, while it has moments of softness, they are shattered by occasionally brutal assaults, or twisted by deeply unsettling dives into bleak oblivion, so one must constantly adjust to each composition's entirely distinct aesthetics. Ultimately, it's an album that manages to touch on nearly every corner of the human emotional landscape.
 

PSYCHIC TV - DREAMS LESS SWEET @ 40

 

Celebrating its 40th anniversary today is Psychic TV's sophomore studio LP, 'Dreams Less Sweet', which was released on October 21, 1983. While the band's debut LP, 'Force the Hand of Chance', left the sounds of Throbbing Gristle far behind, PTV's second album demonstrated that, even with the radical departures of their debut, they were still finding new structures to explore and could not be confined to any particular genre or strategic approach. Indeed, the album forges entirely new cornerstones for musical exploration, departing from the almost conventional pop song structures of the first album in favour of a near-classical aesthetic, with short movements carefully interconnected to create a narratively intricate sonic suite.

While still signed to Stevo's Some Bizzare Records, they had the luxury of working with a budget that allowed for the use of some state-of-the-art equipment, including the Zuccarelli Holophonics system, an experimental binaural recording process. This technology utilized a complex sound imaging technique which was capable of creating three dimensional effects using standard stereo speakers. Though headphones provided the optimum listening experience, properly phase aligned loud speakers were able to accomplish the illusion as well. The system does not use standard microphones; instead, it relies on a set of sound pickups housed in a physical 'body' designed to replicate human hearing physiology as accurately as possible.

For recording 'Dreams Less Sweet', this device was used in a variety of ways to capture unique acoustic environments, including extensive location recordings in places like The Hellfire Club caves, Christ Church in Hampstead, and Caxton Hall. Even the sound inside a coffin was captured using the device. This experimental recording process also drove the group to pursue different musical directions, combining aspects of folk, ethnic music, neo-classical and musique concrète. The focus was primarily on natural acoustic sounds, with minimal use of amplified instruments such as guitars, synthesizers, or drum machines, as were common on the first album.

Conceptually, the album represents a set of complex layers of themes and symbols, involving every facet of the production, from the composition of the music to the smallest elements of the graphic design. Whether it was the flower on the front symbolizing a pierced genital, the location of the group shot on the back cover, or the subtle wolves hidden behind chain-link fencing, every element was meticulously considered, calculated, and integrated into the whole. Musically, this included a song composed by Charles Manson and another with lyrics derived from the final sermon of Jim Jones during the Jonestown massacre. At its most subtle and sweet, the album's subliminal implications were often at their darkest and most subversive. When it reached its crescendo of chaos with a flurry of honking car horns, it was at the peak of its innocence and optimism.

The album stands as the single most complex and multifaceted work Psychic TV ever produced, and also their most sophisticated, technically. Shortly after the completion of the album, a rift developed between co-founders Genesis P-Orridge and Peter Christopherson, with the latter and his partner, Geoff Rushton (henceforth known as Jhon Balance), splintering off to found their Coil project. PTV's relationship with Stevo also floundered, resulting in the founding of Temple Records, their own independent label imprint. From here, Psychic TV would venture into more traditional rock structures, entering into their "Hyperdelic" phase, exemplified by the Godstar single, before changing course again into the Acid House electronica vein, which would define their work in the latter half of the 1980s and beyond. While PTV would occasionally get experimental with their music throughout the remainder of their career, nothing they did after 'Dreams Less Sweet' came close to the sophistication and complexity achieved on that album.

PSYCHIC TV - TUNE IN (TURN ON TO THE ACID HOUSE) @ 35

 

In August of 1988, 35 years ago this month, Psychic TV came out of the closet as an Acid House band after having pranked the club crowd with a fake Various Artists compilation of dance music in June of that year under the title, Jack the Tab. The TUNE IN single is purported to be the first UK release to use the term "ACID HOUSE" as it directly referenced the Chicago originating style. Whereas the Jack the Tab album had obliquely alluded to the movement, though skewing towards a more hip-hop & funky style of groove, Tune In went full tilt into the classic "four on the floor" techno-disco beat which characterized the US inspiration, though the signature squelching TB-303 wasn't quite in place just yet.

 

At the time of its release, I'd only recently clued into the sound via the seminal Phuture 12", Acid Tracks. I was a fan of TG's brand of "Industrial" music and Psychic TV, but what I heard from Phuture was a completely fresh sound with a whole new sense of possibilities. I recall many of my friends who were into experimental music were suspicious of this new sound, finding it too dry, basic and minimal, but I was twigged and my guts told me something big was coming down the pipes. When I saw Tune In on the shelf in my local import shop, I remember I got a sudden rush of delight by seeing that someone like Psychic TV had recognized the potential of what was coming. I hadn't heard the Jack the Tab LP yet, so this came as a total surprise after hearing the retro psyche-rock of their latest album, Allegory & Self. It felt like a paradigm shift was happening.

 

The single was originally released on Temple Records under the Jack the Tab name with a label showing a picture of Superman holding a Psychick cross, and without any mention of the name, Psychic TV. This short-lived version was quickly pulled from distribution after DC Comics expressed objections to the use of their intellectual property and threatened legal action. 

 

Soon after the release of this single, it seemed the UK exploded with ACID HOUSE music and rave culture soon followed, with clandestine warehouse and outdoor parties sprouting up all over the country, luring young party-goers into the ecstasy of new designer drugs and all night techno dance parties. For me, the birth of the entire modern electronic music scene traces back to the summer of 1988 and the release of records like Psychic TV's Tune In. For the next few years, until Genesis P-Orridge and family were chased out of the UK, Psychic TV pursued a course of becoming the ultimate psychedelic electronic dance band, putting on marathon 3 hour live shows across the UK, US and Europe, travelling in a Merry Pranksters style school bus, and spreading the word of tuning in, turning on and freaking out.

 

THROBBING GRISTLE - UNITED / ZYKLON B ZOMBIE @ 45

 

Issued 45 years ago this month is the debut single from Throbbing Gristle, United b/w Zyklon B Zombie, which was released in May of 1978. After coming out of the gates with a murky slurry of sonic despair for their debut LP, TG being ever the contrarians, felt it was necessary to demonstrate they were capable of knocking together a catchy pop song, despite any perceived musical limitations. The result was United, what appears to be a “love song” on the surface, although upon closer inspection, TG still managed to subvert the genre by bringing in allusions to obsession, identity confusion and occult references to Aleister Crowley’s Book of the Law. These sing-song musings sit atop a minimal yet catchy synth & drum machine rhythm, accented by occasional slashes of discordant guitar. But the mayhem is kept to a bare minimum with the results being what critic Jon Savage classified as the first “electropop” song. This respite from madness is short-lived, however, as the B-side returns the listener to the ravages of unfettered TG noise, this time focused on the subject of Nazi death camp poison gas, Zykon B. The single’s sleeve depicts an innocuous looking apartment complex and row of garages with an inset of some bare crossed limbs for the A-side, while the B-side shows Chris Carter in the shower with an inset of gas canisters sporting the label “Giftgas” and what looks strangely like a Psychic cross, albeit some years before Genesis would use a similar symbol for Psychic TV, his post TG project.

THROBBING GRISTLE - TG24 @ 20

 

Celebrating its 20th anniversary today is the CD reissue box set by Throbbing Gristle, TG24.  It was a completely remastered collection of live TG performances covering the period from their first appearance on July 6th, 1976, at the Air Gallery, to their Goldsmith College performance on March 13th, 1980.

Originally, in 1980, TG released a limited run of cassette box sets called 24 Hours of Throbbing Gristle.  The set included live recordings of their first 25 performances (IRC 03 contained two short shows, one per side).  The set also included two additional tapes of radio interviews, a personalized collage and group photographs.  This was all packaged in a black attache case.  These editions were hand duplicated using facilities at Industrial Records studio, therefore the number of editions issued was extremely limited.  Individual editions of some select live shows from this set were later sold separately by Industrial Records, as well as being licensed to other labels or bootlegged to create various live LP releases over the years. 

Sometime after the turn of the new millennia, Mute Records began negotiating with TG to remaster and reissue their back catalog, which included discussions of their live recording archive.  Eventually, a decision was made to reconstruct the 24 Hrs box set as a deluxe CD limited edition.  The process for doing this meant spending months trying to source the best possible versions of the original recordings which could be obtained, rummaging through the archives of all four band members.  TG recorded all their live performances on regular stereo cassettes, rather than reel-to-reel, some of which were in less than ideal condition by the time Chris Carter got around to trying to identify suitable versions to use for remastering.  In some cases, tapes were damaged and, in others, the actual recording had some technical issues which necessitated seeking out alternates.  For some performances, multiple simultaneous recordings were made.  One may have been direct from the mixing board while the other may have been an open mic recording to capture the sound in the audience.  The members of TG reviewed all alternative recordings to determine which version best captured the show and then selected that, even if it may have been of somewhat lesser quality, technically.  For the mastering Chris only employed minimal processing to adjust some output levels, though avoided using any compression.  Some digital noise reduction was employed in select recordings when the noise level was deemed distracting, but some noise was left in as its removal made the recording sound artificially “clean”.

During the process of putting the set together, Chris Carter initially gave up on including IRC-26 (Scala Cinema) because of insurmountable technical issues.  The ion generator used during TG’s live shows had a habit of discharging unexpectedly at times, throwing off sparks, and was so intense at this particular performance that it effected the cassette deck, ruining the second side of the tape with electronic interference.  An alternative show, IRC29 was selected to substitute.   The set of 24 CDs was already duplicated & packaged when the original master cassette was finally unearthed and found to have minimal issues with the recording.  An additional CD was then rushed into production so that the set ended up coming with a bonus 25th CD, added at the last minute. 

For the packaging of the CD edition, a special cloth bound box was created and embossed with the TG24 logo on the top.  Inside, along with the CDs - each of which was packaged in cardboard slip cases with printed graphics, the set included a large wax sealed envelope.  This was packed with an Industrial News magazine, numerous postcards, photos, badges and patches.  An authentication card was also included and signed by all four band members.  To launch the CDs, Mute set up a special art exhibit of TG memorabilia in a London gallery.  The exhibit featured such items as the original TG designer camouflage uniforms, custom audio equipment like Chris Carter’s “Gristlizer” sound processors and Sleazy’s cassette based “sampler” mini keyboard, along with press cuttings, posters and photographs.

Getting my hands on a copy of this set was one of the big WOW moments of my days of indulging in collectible musical products.  It was rather overwhelming to be suddenly in possession of so much TG music, much of which was completely unfamiliar to me.  Their live shows were never repetitive.  Certainly, as the group matured, some pieces found themselves performed live more than once, but they never sounded the same from show to show. For the most part, each performance from each show was its own entity.  Working through them all for an initial listen was a process that took a couple of weeks of exploring, usually one CD per day, if possible.  Live TG is not an “easy listening” experience, even in their “nicest” of incarnations.  Even with Chris’ remastering, the recordings were still sourced from cassettes, sometimes recorded off a mixing board and sometimes recorded using a binaural microphone system (the infamous “head” on a mic stand in the audience you can see in some TG live photos).  As such, the sound can be harsh, distorted and piercing, so you have to be in a certain state of mind to be able to appreciate what’s there.  Sometimes a TG show can seem like a pot just sitting there simmering on the stove with no real sense of anything happening.  Then, without warning, the BEAST can awaken and start tearing your ears apart.  You can be bored one minute and enthralled the next.  TG live was always like a conjuration of some kind of trans-dimensional entity breaking through with it’s Lovecraftian tentacles grasping at the audience’s perceptions.  Sometimes the spell worked, sometimes it didn’t or lasted only for a brief moment before dispersing.  But that was the magic of it all.

I don’t have the physical version of this set anymore, but I scanned and photographed it all and have digital files of all the audio.  I had to sell it off when money was tight and costs of living took precedence.  But it was a treasure while I had it and I tried to make sure it went to a good home when I did part with it.  I can’t think of many other groups who could release something like this and make it seem essential rather than self-indulgence.  A year after its release, a companion matching box set was issued to collect the remaining 10 live shows TG performed before their 1981 termination after their San Francisco final show.  The two boxes sure looked nice together and I’ll always be happy I had them in my home for the years they were here.

Creating this box set would not only revive interest for fans of TG, it also proved to be a catalyst for the group to reform not long after its release.  The process of putting the set together had managed to thaw the ice which had been long built up between certain members and, though some issues would remain contentious between them, the group did manage to enter into a highly productive second life until December of 2010, when Gen packed it in after their last live show in London and Sleazy passing beyond the veil shortly thereafter.

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.

 

Marking its tenth anniversary today is the final Throbbing Gristle product to emerge from their post-millennial reunion era (2002-2010), Desertshore | The Final Report, which was released on November 25th, 2012. Though Genesis P-Orridge had left the group before completing the project and Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson died shortly after Gen’s departure, it is, effectively, the capstone to TG’s recorded output, albeit under the “X-TG” imprint.

The origin of Desertshore began with Sleazy in 2007. Several members of the group were fans of Nico, but he came up with the concept of creating a complete cover of her 1970 solo album of the same name. The notion of TG covering an entire album was novel enough, but the group also came up with the idea of doing a three day installation residency at the ICA gallery in London. Here, they would set up a mobile recording studio and hold multiple sessions each day with a small audience in attendance, observing the group creating the album. There would be two hour sessions, twice each day (afternoon & evening) over three days. Each session was recorded in its entirety via a binaural live digital recording system and the results were then issued in a 12 CD-R bespoke wallet duplicated in a limited edition of a few hundred copies. The recordings captured mostly group chatter, vocal takes from Genesis and a number of instrumental improvisations from the group. Some of the non-Nico related original “jams” ended up becoming The Third Mind Movements CD, which was released in 2009 to help promote TG’s US tour.

After the ICA installation, Sleazy took the recordings and began doing various experiments, including bringing in new, exotic electronic instruments. The bulk of the work was being overseen by him until TG were about to do a small tour of Europe at the end of 2010. However, after the first London Gig, Gen abruptly packed off back to NYC, cryptically stating S/he’d no longer be performing, but was still “a member of TG”. The remaining trio were left holding the bag for commitments for the remainder of the tour, which they managed to salvage by hastily regrouping as "X-TG". During this time, they briefly decamped to Chris & Cosey’s Norfolk studio and recorded a number of jam sessions. These would form the basis of The Final Report, included in the eventual release. Sadly, however, after completing two X-TG gigs, Sleazy returned to his home in Thailand where he suddenly died before the end of the year.

The fate of the Desertshore project was uncertain at that point. All the materials and gear Sleazy was using for the project were eventually shipped to Chris & Cosey’s Norfolk studio, but Chris had very little understanding of the strange tools Sleazy was dabbling with, nor a clear understanding of his intent. The vocals which Gen had recorded in 2007 at the ICA were deemed unusable at some point after He/r departure and the relationship with Gen was no longer amenable to recording new vocals. Thus, the concept came about to have a selection of guest vocalists come in to contribute to the project. These included people like Anthony Hegarty, Blixa Bargeld, Sasha Grey, Marc Almond and Cosey. Chris & Cosey made every effort to try to realize the project as close to what Sleazy had imagined as they were capable of doing, and before the end of 2012, they’d finally managed to put together a finished production.

Along with the Desertshore album and the jams with Sleazy, The Final Report, a third ambient remixed version of Desertshore was created by Chris and included as a bonus CD in limited editions for friends. This was eventually made available as a digital download, แฝดนรก (Faet Narok). The album was released on CD, vinyl and digital media, with physical media elegantly packaged in special embossed white & grey covers with an integrated booklet included.

Musically, the album not only pays a loving tribute to Nico’s original work, it also stands as a tribute to TG itself as that entity completed its final task. It’s a rich tapestry of atmospherics and textures, all tied together with the kind of attention to detail which had become typical for the surviving duo’s work. The Final Report offers up a tantalizing glimpse of what might have been possible if the X-TG trio had continued to work together and perform. It was somehow liberated without the internal conflicts which had underpinned their relationship with Gen before He/r departure. Yet there’s a melancholy to it as well given that failure to hold the group together long enough to complete the project with all four members still involved. Ultimately, it is an expansive and substantive monument to everything TG was capable of creating.

THE SECOND ANNUAL REPORT OF THROBBING GRISTLE @ 45

 

Forty five years ago this month, in November of 1977, The Second Annual Report of Throbbing Gristle hit the record shops in the UK in its first edition of exactly 785 copies. Independently released by the band’s own imprint, Industrial Records, the run was precisely how much they could afford to press with their limited, self financed budget. It was the first major release from Industrial Records and would become the cornerstone for an entirely new genre of popular music.

TG had been bubbling up from the basement of their “Death Factory” at 10 Martello Rd. in Hackney for about two years before the album was released, mutating out of the carcass of COUM Transmissions, a multimedia transgressive performance art collective which had been operating since 1969. After being essentially chased out of their home town of Hull by local authorities, Genesis P-Orridge and Cosey Fanni Tutti managed to pull in fellow pervert, Hipgnosis photographer/designer Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson, and electronics wizard, Chris Carter, to complete the TG lineup before the end of 1975. After spending endless hours reinventing sound in their makeshift studio, the group began to perform live in 1976, kicking off their notoriety with the infamous Prostitution show at the ICA, which triggered off debate in the British parliament regarding the use of public funds for the arts. This also garnered them the infamous “wreckers of civilization” condemnation from one of the MPs.

Prior to the release of the album, a few cassette compilations were hand copied and unofficially circulated among friends until the group felt they’d got something worthy of pressing on vinyl. Side one of the album would mostly consist of extracts from four of their recent live performances, which had been recorded on stereo cassette. These would be edited together on 2 track reel-to-reel and augmented by a couple of studio tidbits. The side would end with a DJ from one of the live shows scolding the audience for their bad behavior. The second side of the album would consist of a single composition, the soundtrack to the COUM film, After Cease to Exist, recorded on 4 track reel-to-reel. The overall sound of the album ended up being a bubbling cauldron of murky noise, news radio & surveillance sound fragments and distorted vocals from Gen about things like Manson family style murdering as exemplified by a graphic description of a pregnant woman having her baby cut out of her belly. It was the ambience of dead factories and deserted streets mixed with images of suburban nightmares and it was deliberately as far away from the influence of American style blues and jazz as you could possibly conceive. Despite this, the group, on stage, still affected a kind of “rock band” configuration, using heavily processed, ineptly played guitar and bass, though without a drummer and accompanied by home made synths & electronics. The whole shebang was further processed through Chris’ custom made sound processors, the “Gristleizer”, giving it all a distinctly garbled modulation.

The album was presented in a plain white sleeve with a printed b&w sheet glued to the back containing a small photograph of the band and an extensive text detailing the product and its purpose. It was presented like a dry, clinical research paper from a soulless corporation of no particular distinction. Inside was included a long questionnaire which encouraged purchasers of the LP to complete and return to Industrial Records by mail. It was a tactical ploy to help the group establish both a kind of “fan club” correspondence and to develop internal data regarding their followers. The entire operation was quite brilliantly conceived to both parody corporate methodologies while leveraging their practical value for the groups own purposes.

Surprisingly, the LP quickly sold out and garnered some very favorable reviews, which took the group by surprise and brought them a level of credibility they’d not anticipated. The funds from the sale of the album were returned directly back into Industrial Records and used to finance further productions of records and singles. The master tapes for the first album were turned over to the founders of Fetish Records to use as a means of establishing their label. Fetish reissued the LP in a few different editions, including one where the record was remastered backwards and side two included an inadvertent addition to the audio in the form of some barely audible chamber music, which had been on a tape used for the remastering, but which was not properly erased and bled through the After Cease To Exist audio.

That particular backwards/chamber music version of the LP ended up being the record by TG which caused me to have my “epiphany” in terms of recognizing the importance of this music. It was on a night in December of 1984 when a friend and I dropped blotter acid called “Flash” (complete with a lightning bolt print on the tab) and listened to that album. It was during that experience when I comprehended that TG had done something much more fundamental than gone “primitive” with their music. They’d actually gone back into the DNA of sound itself and recombined it into something entirely new. Not that there weren’t precedents to this music prior to TG. The German experimental scene of the early 1970s had produced similar sounding recordings, but TG had identified something additional in terms of both the means of performing and the conceptual potential inherent therein. TG had created an entire methodology of presentation and packaging, as well as the use of transgressive, “taboo” subject matter. They devised a system of delivery which was constantly able to re-calibrate itself and apply contradictory juxtapositions in order to avoid any sense of predictability. Whatever the tangent, as soon as it was perceived as becoming “expected”, they’d swap things around and deliver something which seemed to oppose what went before.

As a foundational document, The Second Annual Report of Throbbing Gristle stands as one of the most vitally revolutionary musical artifacts to come along in the latter half of the 20th century. It utterly changed the way I perceive sound and how I approach the creation and performance of “music”.

PSYCHIC TV - HELL IS INVISIBLE - HEAVEN IS HER/E @ 15

Today marks the 15th anniversary of the release of the debut album by the reconstituted Psychic TV, aka PTV3, Hell Is Invisible...Heaven Is Her/e, which was issued on June 4th, 2007. It represented the rebirth proper of Psychic TV after over a decade of dormancy and was part of a pantheon of Throbbing Gristle related releases that year. These included a new TG album as well as new works from Carter Tutti, Thee Majesty and Sleazy’s Threshold Houseboys Choir. A banner year for TG fans to be sure!

After the release of Trip Reset in 1996, an album recorded while Genesis was recovering from severe injuries resulting from his escape from a near fatal house fire in California, PTV effectively ceased operation. No new recordings were release and only reissues were hitting the market, often of dubious provenance given that Genesis had sold off most of the PTV rights for cheap while desperate for cash, which put many titles into a nebulous state, opening the doors for less scrupulous labels to take advantage. PTV’s Roman P. even ended up in a Volkswagen TV ad where they obviously were oblivious to the songs condemnation of Polanski and his dalliances with underage girls.

During this time, Genesis mostly moved away from the music world and focused on fine arts, photography, poetry and installations. There were occasional live appearances, including a reunion of PTV’s founding members when Alex Fergusson joined Genesis and a few other members from the mid 1980s era PTV for a special one-off show in London in 1999. This event celebrated his return to the UK after his “exile” in 1991 after a scandalous TV tabloid piece accused him of Satanic abuse of his children. P-Orridge had also started working with Bryin Dall for the spoken word project, Thee Majesty, which also performed that evening.

By the mid 2000s, Genesis and wife Miss Jackie / Lady Jaye were settled in NYC when Jaye and former Toilet Boys drummer, Edward ODowd, began working in tandem to convince Genesis to reactivate Psychic TV. After the reunion of Throbbing Gristle in 2004, Genesis finally decided it was time to bring back PTV and they set about filling out the rest of the band with local NYC musicians. The revitalized group began performing and working on new material which eventually lead to the recording of Hell Is Invisible… Heaven Is Her/e.

The album and the rebuilt group ultimately landed in a musical territory which had always been at the core of Genesis’ interests, psychedelia, but which s/he had only briefly managed a dalliance with in the mid 1980s during the “Hyperdelic” phase of the band with the release of singles like Godstar & Good Vibrations and the unfinished Allegory and Self LP. Almost from the first days of he/r exploration of music, Genesis had wanted to have a psychedelic rock band inspired by groups of the late 1960s. With this new version of PTV3, Gen went full tilt into that genre with unhindered abandon. The results of those efforts were not always successful, but the intent was certainly sincere and Gen never seemed more satisfied with the music that was created than by what PTV3 did. The album’s themes, while not constructed into a coherent conceptual album, roughly chart the progress of death and rebirth while also incorporating concepts of gender ambiguity, which had been at the core of Gen’s relationship with Jaye for the preceding decade.

The album was the only one to feature Miss Jaye before her tragic death later that year. The loss of Jaye was a devastating blow for Genesis and put the project into turmoil for a couple of years before they could fully regroup and get back to proper touring and recording, which they did for the next decade until Genesis became ill with leukemia, a condition which ended he/r life early in 2020. Of the PTV3 era releases, this album may not be their best but it does “set the controls for the heart of the sun”.

P.S. Oops! Almost forgot to censor the cover so I don't get dinged by FB's algorithms. Can't have those naughty bits visible!

THROBBING GRISTLE - THE DESERTSHORE INSTALLATION @ 15

 

Fifteen years ago today, on June 1st, 2007, Throbbing Gristle began a three day residency at the art gallery where they were first declared “wreckers of civilization” over three decades earlier. London’s ICA, Institute of Contemporary Arts, became host to a 12 hour installation, conducted in two hour segments, twice a day, over the course of three consecutive days (Friday, Saturday & Sunday). The Desertshore Installation was intended to offer its rotating audience a glimpse into the creative process of TG while they began work on a complete cover version of Nico’s classic album, Desertshore.

 

The idea for the project originated with Peter Christopherson, who wanted to take TG into new territory and push the collective into processes outside their comfort zone. The idea to do this in front of an audience was both daring and risky as they put themselves on display during the must vulnerable parts of their creative process. This was particularly challenging for Genesis P-Orridge, who was tasked with interpreting Nico’s idiosyncratic vocal style, often in languages other than English. The other members were less on the spot as some elements, like basic rough rhythm tracks, were prepared in advance of the installation.

 

In practice, the bulk of the sessions seemed to revolve around trying to capture usable vocal takes, though the group would intersperse these with numerous improvisations completely separate from the Nico songs. A selection of these improves eventually became mixed and augmented to form The Third Mind Movements album, which was issued in 2009 to coincide with the group's US mini-tour. The entirety of the show was videotaped and recorded on binaural digital audio with the audio portion issued in a limited edition 12 disc CD-R bound wallet set of approximately 250 copies. The video documentation has never been published to date to my knowledge.

 

After the installation and before the group could complete the album, Genesis suddenly & mysteriously departed TG after the initial London gig for a scheduled short EU tour in December of 2010. Peter Christopherson then died suddenly soon after that and the project lay dormant for a couple of years. Eventually, Chris Carter & Cosey Fanni Tutti took up the task of completing it in 2012, salvaging the recordings and equipment Sleazy had collected and taking it to their Norfolk schoolhouse studio for completion.

 

With Genesis estranged from them and the recordings of he/r vocals from the ICA sessions deemed unusable, the duo decided to take a different approach to finish the project and invited a number of friends and associates to do guest vocals. The resulting album was then released under the X-TG banner along with a second disc of improvisations recorded at their studio by Chris, Cosey & Peter before his death. A third ambient remix CD was also issued in a limited edition for close friends.  The Desertshore project would ultimately serve as a capstone for TG as no further material has yet to surface from the surviving Industrial Records shareholders.

THROBBING GRISTLE - PART TWO - THE ENDLESS NOT @ 15

 

Marking its 15th anniversary today is the reunion album from Throbbing Gristle, Part Two - The Endless Not, which was released by Mute Records on this day, April 1st, 2007. More of a “re-birthing” than a reunion, it was the first fully realized studio album produced by the group since 20 Jazz Funk Greats in 1979.

The road to Part Two began back in 2002 with the reactivation of Industrial Records under Mute’s umbrella and the release of the sprawling TG24 box set of live recordings. This was concurrent with a museum exhibit of TG memorabilia and ephemera, which was held at the Cabinet Gallery in London in December. The occasion of this event was the catalyst for the four members of TG to come together again for the first time since disbanding in 1981. With the old wounds mostly mitigated by the passing of time, Mute began a process of encouraging the group to explore the potential of working together again, even if for only very specific and limited purposes.

The initial results of these efforts manifested in a planned one-off reunion performance to be called RE:TG. It was to have been part of a music festival put on by All Tomorrow’s Parties featuring an impressive lineup of groups who had been, in some way, inspired or influenced by TG. The event was well into being realized when it was abruptly cancelled due to logistical reasons beyond the groups control. However, the momentum of putting this together left the group in a position where they felt compelled to offer a performance, regardless of the situation with the festival. This resulted in the now legendary Astoria gig on May 15th, 2005, almost 23 years exactly since TG’s last appearance on stage.

The preparation for this performance involved the group going to the studio, not only to rehearse, but to come up with new material for the show. In typical TG fashion, they didn’t want this to be merely a “best of” set of fan favorites. They wanted to showcase how the individual members had progressed as artists and demonstrate what that development meant in terms of a 21st century incarnation of TG. Some of the material created during these sessions became the four track TG NOW EP, which was a souvenir release made available in a limited edition for the RE:TG event. The success of those recordings and the live performance then became the impetus to push beyond what they had foreseen as a one-time event.

After the Astoria show, other performances followed and more time was spent in the studio to work on additional materials with the objective of creating a full album of new TG compositions. Those efforts eventually culminated in the realization of Part Two - The Endless Not. The finished album featured all new material, save a reworking of Almost a Kiss from the NOW EP. Like the DOA album from 1978, Part Two features four individual solo tracks from each member, though Gen’s track was a collaboration with his Thee Majesty partner, Bryin Dall. Overall, the album offers a fully updated manifestation of Throbbing Gristle’s sound, with their collective knowledge and experience gained over the preceding decades readily apparent in the sophistication of the production. It was unmistakably “TG”, but that beast had evolved and grown into something new and vibrant. There was no rehashing of obvious old tropes and no nostalgia for their bygone glory days. This was 21st century TG for the present day and beyond.

The album was minimally packaged for the CD release with only a card insert in the front featuring a photo of Mount Kailash taken by Martin Gray. The initial run of the CD included a “totemic gift”, the production of which was overseen by Peter Christopherson at his compound in Thailand. The primary run included one of four items encased in the spine of the CD tray. Each was made from one of the following materials: bone, wood, rubber or copper. A fifth stainless steel totem was made available in a Japanese edition of the CD. A sixth totemic gift was made of 23 carat gold.

Critical reception for the album was generally very positive, as was the response from fans, though there were those who were not so enthusiastic about it all. Personally, I felt it was something of a minor miracle to be able to get a brand new album of TG music, something I never expected to happen prior to the reunion rumblings that began in 2002. I loved hearing how this creature could come back to life after so long and, not only exist, but be more than it had been in the past. Perhaps the overt confrontational nature of “classic” era TG was gone, but this was light years away from the kinds of rehash “oldies” reunion efforts that you see from most other aging bands.

TG would continue in this reconstituted form until December of 2010, when it would all come apart, first with the abrupt, mysterious departure of Genesis P-Orridge at the beginning of a short European tour, and then with the sudden death of Peter Christopherson. During their reunion era, they would release a number of recordings along with NOW and Part Two, but nothing which constituted a full, proper studio album. Third Mind Movements was essentially a collection of improves captured during the Desertshore Installation and 32nd Annual report is a live recreation of their first LP. Their Desertshore project would eventually materialize in 2012 under the X-TG banner, without Genesis being involved, so Part Two stands, like the mountain on its cover, as the sole complete manifestation of 21st century TG. Whether or not we’ll see anything else materialize from this era remains a mystery as Chris Carter and Cosey Fanni Tutti now remain as the sole gatekeepers of the TG archive. I suspect there are many recordings, both studio and live, which could be released at some point in the future, but no word has come in terms of any specifics. For now, this is what we’ve got to mark this creative period. It’s an album that sits along side a host of other releases from that year by the members of the group. It was a remarkable period with new albums from TG, Psychic TV, Sleazy’s post-Coil project, Threshold HouseBoys Choir, Carter Tutti & Thee Majesty. All in all, 2007 was a banner year to be a fan of the music created by these four remarkable individuals.