Gen's upcoming events and Misc.upcoming projects...





GENS MISC. UPCOMING PROJECTS: Heartworm Press are publishing “Collected Lyrics and Poems of Genesis Breyer P-Orridge – Volume One 1961 to 1971. Later they will publish Gen's first novel, written in 1969, “Mrs. Askwith”. Other books will follow.

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Excerpt from THEE PSYCHICK BIBLE: out NOW from feral house...

Excerpt from THEE PSYCHICK BIBLE:Limited editions of 999 available at FERAL HOUSE (http://feralhouse.com) for $69.

This excerpt was posted over at http://www.genesisp-orridge.com in pdf.I have reposted it here as regular text..


FOREWORD
THE DECONSTRUCTION OF A MAP
OF AN UNKNOWN TERRITORY

Probably no word does better justice to the TOPY phenomenon than “Occulture.” Meshing “Occult” with “Culture,” there’s also a prefixed trace of “Occident” if you will. The defined concept as such was integrated in the inter-TOPY-“lingo” in the late 80s, and then grew to become a readily accepted general term for anything cultural yet decidedly occult/spiritual.

As a more or less unnamed concept, Occulture had already been active in TOPY since day one. The field of research was never ever occultism per se or culture per se, but always consisted of interchangeability where
eventually the clear-cut borders were gently erased. Books, pamphlets, newsletters, film and video screenings, record and cassette releases and other manifestations could certainly contain more or less blatant esoteric form or content, but it was in no way a prerequisite. The literal meaning of “occult”(as in “hidden”) was given a wider perspective than the merely “magical” one.

Hidden information, forgotten personalities, discarded thoughtforms, untrendy thinkers, eclectic evolutionairies and anachronistic anarchs...Dusting off shelved illuminations from past ages and offering forgotten morsels of human intelligence proved to be a very fertile soil indeed. A Promethean Strikeforce that passed on the torch of enlightenment from the dawn of mankind to our own revolutionary times.

From very early on, there was a heavy focus on the unhampered sharing of information, hidden or otherwise. All one had to do was let one’s interests and areas of research be known through newsletters and other channels, and one was certain to receive something of interest. A secondhand book, long out of print. A compendium of xeroxes from someone’s equally enthusiastic archive. A cassette tape copy of some recordings never released on record or broadcast on radio. Seeing the global TOPY Network as a precursor to the Internet is not far fetched at all. The first generation developers of “cyberculture” were certainly aware of—and some of them even active in—TOPY and its ideas and ideals.

Culture in itself is usually associated with performing arts, painting, music, literature and many other forms of traditional manifestation.The sphere of culture. But essentially, culture is exactly what the word entails: a culture—a structure or soil that contains the implicit possibility of growth and manifestation of life and, in extension, ideas and information. The merging of sperm and egg and their continued growth as one DNA-programmed entity in a womb is perhaps the clearest and most potent symbol of culture.

Many of the TOPY “Access Points” (regional headquarters) were involved in releasing material for distribution: books, magazines,records, videos and so on. At TOPY SCAN, the Scandinavian
section, we focussed at times more on these kinds of activities than on the actual meeting of members or on doing strange rituals together.The more esoteric and magical activity certainly took place too, but
quite often these rituals were “cosmic boosters” for the success of, for instance, a new magazine project or a new record. The intimate seeds of individuals were sown in a communal soil for the benefit of occultural manifestations—these becoming, in turn, seeds in their own right, blooming in a more extroverted universe of readers, listeners, art lovers, etc.

On the more distinctly magical level, we organised several workshops in shamanism (meaning here using archaic techniques of, for instance,drumming to induce states of trance used for information gathering
on entirely different, higher, levels of consciousness) and Western ceremonial magic. We made treks into the Swedish countryside, stayed up all night and tried (quite successfully) to communicate with hidden aspects of nature and our own minds.

The rituals suggested in Thee Grey Book (the main TOPY compendium dealing with magick and philosophy) and other key documents were often the starting point for members wanting to experiment with meditation,
traditional methods of ceremonial magic and one’s own sexuality in adirected way. Rituals were by no means confined to the individual monthly sigilising process (as recommended in Thee Grey Book), but would develop and grow in organic forms, either individually or with other members.

The status of “Eden” for the actively sigilising men and “Kali” for the women signified an even stronger internal bond. That is, if one wanted to. There were never any demands on Kalis or Edens to do or achieve anything, except possibly to be truer to themselves than they had been up to that point.

What the central TOPY ritual consisted of, at least structurally, was that on the 23rd of each month, at 2300 hours, the dedicated adepts would perform a sigilising ritual in and/or on an artwork designed by themselves
specifically for the desired goal. This piece of highly charged talismanic art was then sent in to a TOPY “Station” (bigger and more administrative headquarters than the Access Points). The idea was to “impose” or inspire self discipline and regularity, to unite with other adepts in time, to initiate personal empirical research about ritual magick and, not forgetting, to honor the weird synchronistic concept of the number 23, as “inherited” from TOPY mentors William S. Burroughs and Brion Gysin.

The augmented level of 23 consecutive sent-in “23-sigils” was reached by very few individuals connected to the TOPY EUROPE headquarters. Usually, however, that level of commitment to an experimental (yet
communal) goal manifested itself in other ways too (active help with administration, practical assistance, creating original things—texts, images, music for TOPY publications, etc.) and thus quite few people
were able to achieve quite a lot.

The structure of “official” TOPY sigilizing combines elements of traditional sexual magic (using the elevated state of mind reached at and before the orgasmic climax to mentally charge a symbol of the desired,
of the ideal, and also using the highly vitally charged residual secretions: semen and vaginal fluids),
meditational focus, eastern mantric techniques, Austin Osman Spare’s development of an individual “alphabet of desire”,elements of sacrificial use of blood and saliva as well as other techniques to maximize the experience as such. Not forgetting creating a totally individual-based artwork to act as a “receiving” vessel or talisman for the desired. Thereby integrating art in its most important and primordial function: As a magical and mystical tool to achieve union with higher cosmic levels of mind and to express one’s affinity and desires with and to these levels.

Very seldom is this art historic aspect of TOPY considered. The archival collection of contemporary talismanic art, ranging in styles from totally primitive abstractions to very refined draughtsmanship, over sexually explicit collages to mind-bending mixed media paintings and sculptures, is totally unique in every sense of the word. The term “Magical Art” is usually ascribed to totemic objects from Africa or other non-Western areas. And it’s usually something having to do with the past. In the case of the TOPY “collection,” all the gathered works are indeed contemporary/present, but all bordering on (at least in the very moment
of creation) the future.

Another highly interesting aspect of this art is that it is in many ways an anti-art. It’s not art made specifically for other people to see, and thereby it doesn’t fit in with the contemporary ideals of pleasing an art
market. Here we can return to the very orgins of art (cave paintings, etc.). The idea was not to have a glass of wine together with tribal kin in a cosy cave, to self-aggrandize through witty ironic criticisms. The idea
was to impose one’s will on the world outside your own personal sphere, or that of the tribe. Art as magical evocation. Whether other members or other tribes actually could see or understand what one had inscribed
or painted was beside the point.

On an individual level, the experimenting was active and, I would
say, radical. As an administrator of TOPY SCAN and, later, TOPY
EUROPE, I was fortunate to see and handle European Kalis’ and
Edens’ “23-sigils” in trust (a trust that has been, is and will continue
to be honored). I was also involved in a proto-creative dialogue with
several members on magical results, effects, breakthroughs, ups and
downs of various techniques, etc. Hearing what had worked for others, I
empirically assembled and concocted my own “grimoires” and shared my
findings with those who had been sharing in their turn. An occultural
TOPY concept in genuinely creative action!

There were also magical workings created and performed together. During
the international gatherings, so called “Roto-Rites,” elaborate and ceremonial workings would be performed for goals that dealt with greater TOPY ideals and visions. At TOPYSCAN and TOPY EUROPE we would not
infrequently experiment with sigilising and other kinds of rituals together.Sharing those kinds of intense and electrified physical and emotionalmoments with others in trust was a real eye-opener to many of those involved,including myself. The creative framework of a uniting crystal-clear goal and of experimental techniques that evoke a previously unfelt emotional chargein the ritual chamber can be quite an empowering setting to be in.

At the era of conception—not an inappropriate symbol in this case—the
TOPY network (or Nett Work, as P-Orridge would aptly call it) was tightly
interwoven with the musical constellation “Psychick Televison” (PTV).

From 1982 and onwards, PTV in their many guises were missionaries of
individual liberty on a seemingly endless tour. TOPY as a living entity
was very integrated in PTV and became philosophical fuel not only for
the band members but also for those already active or those just curious
when the multicoloured Psychick Circus rolled by all over the world.

Some TOPY members “liked” PTV and some did not. What was obvious though, was that the Gesamtkunstwerk-aspect of what seemed to “others” to be just a weird band, was an enormous source of inspiration for most of us. It was possible to do anything. Music was not confined to pop or noise or anything. Neither were the stage presentations, the performances, the artwork for the records limited in any way.

Many of the young people involved in various phases of PTV grew up to
be creative and successful artists in their own right. If there’s something
I think unites all of these people, it’s an openmindedness, a creative
courage and a spontaneity that in many regards have their origins in
the uncompromising Psychick Television—and Temple ov Psychick
Youth—kaleidoscope.

What constitutes the essence of all of this? There are so many things
that come to mind, but I guess the most quintessential ones are the
offering of different possibilities, of alternative options, of alternative
routes, of inspiring courage and will, of breaking apart uncomfortable
imposed patterns and showing, by example, that it is after all possible to
re-assemble the bits in very creative ways.

The concepts of “occult,” “culture” and even “occulture” become redundant
on a higher level. What’s here for us all in our apparently finite timeframe is the de-finite possibility to access the in-finite. How and why we as individuals go about this is another story (no less interesting). The first phase and face of TOPY as an experimental “Centrifugal Intelligence Agency” was so fertile it took on a life of its own and thereby touched upon the infinite. Regardless if one’s path is that of a hermit or that of an ardent team player, a lot can be learned from this strange manifestation in human history and culture that has, more than any group structure before, taken on the conscious decision to give form and voice (dare I say even direction?) to the Collective Unconscious.

Carl Abrahamsson, a.k.a. “Eden 162,” Stockholm, Sweden, 2006


INTRODUCTION
ON THE WAY TO THEE GARDEN
The Psychic Youth sits in a house of cards. Reaches out. It is not hard.
Only takes the will to do it. Only takes a small push, to watch the house
they have built for you collapse. To peel back the mask of the identity
they gave you. And when the house falls, as it must, it is the first Garden
we find ourselves in. Unnamed.

To be awake. To be ex-dream.

These are the apocryphal scriptures of Genesis Breyer P-Orridge and Thee
Temple ov Psychick Youth, a representation of an eleven-year experiment
(1981-1992) that will be remembered as a crucial period in the development
of both the rough beast that is magick and of anarchic and artistic responses to the ever-marching and ever-homogenizing process of globalization.

While the story of the music of Genesis Bryeyer P-Orridge, Throbbing
Gristle and Psychic Television is relatively well-known, the story of TOPY
remains a cipher, hidden behind slogans and propaganda. The activities
of the Temple, outside of the memories of those who were there and
participated, have been obfuscated, and quite intentionally so—buried
like the Dead Sea Scrolls, or perhaps, as William S. Burroughs once
wished for some particularly volatile and explosive fragments of his own
cut-up writing, wrapped in lead and sunk to the bottom of the ocean,
leaving a blank spot in the history of the progression of both modern
occulture—a term that the Temple coined—and modern culture itself.

Founded out of the rubble left by the sonic assault that Throbbing Gristle
waged on the English public, Psychic TV was originally conceived as
the new forum for ex-TG members Genesis P-Orridge along with
Alex Fergusson of Alternative TV and later, for a short time only, Peter
Christopherson (later to form one half of “archangels of chaos” Coil
with the late Geoff Rushton a.k.a Jhon Balance) and occasional cameos
by Marc Almond of Soft Cell. The band’s original forays, notably the
LPs Force Thee Hand ov Chance and Dreams Less Sweet, under Fergusson’s
influence, largely drifted away from TG’s pulverizing wall of force and
into more pop territory, the band becoming a fully-fledged psychedelic
rock outfit by the release of Allegory and Self.

Set up as a propaganda device for self-directed consciousness expansion
by any means necessary, Psychic TV was structured as the public face of
Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth, a widescale experiment in the meltdown
of personal assumptions via guiltless sexuality and more formalized
“magickal” techniques derived from Austin Osman Spare, Brion Gysin
and Aleister Crowley, among others. TOPY, however, was never an
explicitly magickal order, drawing equally on the heritage of the radical
action groups and experimental microsocieties of the 1960s, such as the
Exploding Galaxy group that Genesis had worked with in London, the
Diggers of Haight Ashbury, or the COUM Transmissions performance
art collective that Genesis founded in 1969 after a series of “flicker”
induced visions and voices, later joined by Peter Christopherson and
Cosey Fanny Tutti before creating Throbbing Gristle with Chris Carter.

The magick of the Temple wasn’t the magick of the Golden Dawn,
designed for the stately Victorian manor; it was magick designed for the
blank-eyed, TV-flattened, prematurely abyss-dwelling youth of the late
Twentieth Century—like the punk kids in Derek Jarman’s Jubilee, who
have never ventured out of the council flats they were born in. Rather
than high ceremony, drawing-room intrigue and exalted initiatory ritual,
the focus more often than not became simple survival, and defense of
the individual vision from a malevolently dehumanizing culture that
the Victorians and Modernists, even in their most racist and reactionary
moments, could never have foreseen.

The Temple, as its initiates often said, was a ghost… It was, and is, the
realization that your daydreams and fantasies, the teachers within you,
are the most important teachers of all. A push in the right direction,
towards yourself, towards self-integrity, towards your own connection
with the deep waters of Spirit. A method of deprogramming instead of
programming. The Chapel of Extreme Experience.

KEYS TO THE TEMPLE
1 Sitting in the back of the car at age six watching the trees on the horizon,the setting sun fickering through them. Heart is infinite moment is infinite.

2 Watching strange androgynous singer on television at age twelve, new
world, newfound desires, yearning for something more than the human.

3 Strange books with strange symbols. Screaming orgasm at ceiling
gives birth to self.

4 First trip, with friends in the woods. Sudden sense of understanding
felt in the body. This is paganism: To find the gods within oneself.

5 What do you want to do with your life?

TOPY were the direct inheritors of a century’s worth of occult and
countercultural “science,” and then some, a crustpunk laboratory where
radical and, in many cases, previously forgotten ideas were synthesized
into a way of life. The cut-up method of William S. Burroughs and
Brion Gysin; Gysin and Ian Sommerville’s Dreamachine; Austin
Spare’s sigil method; sexual magick in the vein of Aleister Crowley
and Paschal Beverly Randolph; the otherworldly and psychedelic
explorations of John Dee, Timothy Leary and John C. Lilly; Count
Alfred Korzybski’s General Semantics; and the physical and sexual
deconditioning of Wilhelm Reich, among many, many other avenues of
theory and practice.

Over a drink in a pub on Museum Street in London where Crowley and
Spare once whiled away lost evenings, Phil Hine, the Tantric scholar and
author of many of the primary texts on chaos magick (a school of progressive occult thought that ran largely parallel in timeline and geographical center of development, and often intertwined with, the efforts of TOPY), related a particularly telling story to me. Speaking in very admiring tones of the Temple—and stating that, in his belief, they have still yet to be surpassed for their revolutionary approach to magick—he recounted the tale of a very serious Thelemic symposium held somewhere in the Midlands, in which a very serious discussion of the theory and practice of Crowleyan sex magick was enjoined by a few TOPY initiates, who, in the name of freedom of information, displayed a video tape of a TOPY sex magick action, only to have the ever-so “transgressive” crowd descend into nervous, schoolboy-ish giggling fits…

The world of “magick” is, nine times out of ten, a world where people
can hide their deep-set insecurity and personal damage behind illusion,
constructed identities and claims to privileged knowledge, power or
spiritual status. A gaudy carnival magic show, conducted with props
that have long since begun to disintegrate with age, that seems to
function only to distract people from the real magic that is occurring all
around them, in every facet of their lives, every day of their lives. While
the rituals and magical techniques of the Temple seem overly simplistic
in comparison with the loftier Qabalahs, tables of correspondences
and secret formulae of “high” magick, they have one thing which high
magick quite often forgets: a concrete function.

The TOPY magickal system centered around its unique approach to the
“sigil” method—as derived and modernized by the artist Austin Osman
Spare, in the early years of the Twentieth Century, from earlier work by
Cornelius Agrippa in the Sixteenth. At the same time every month—
the twenty-third hour of the twenty-third day—each active sigilizer
would create a “Sigil ov Three Liquids.” After careful deliberation on
something truly wanted and needed in life, each sigilizer would write in
detail what they wanted to happen, thereafter anointing the paper with
blood, spit, sexual fluids and a clipping of hair. After drying, this would
be placed in an envelope and mailed to TOPY World Headquarters,
where it would be filed away anonymously under each sigilizer’s identity
number within the Temple (these archives remain undisturbed at an
undisclosed location somewhere in the world).

Each sigilizer aimed to gain control over the only thing over which control is truly possible: one’s self. The apparent simplicity of the Sigil ov Three Liquids masks some very deep processes that have been a part of the human experience since prehistorical times, acting on levels of the brain far deeper, and therefore that much more potent, then those we are expected to use as citizens of the “modern” world. Central to an understanding of the TOPY sigil method is the Law of Contagion as observed by Sir James Frazer in The Golden Bough—the assumption, common among most “primitive” peoples, that a fragment (or splinter, as P-Orridge says) of something can be used as a magical link to effect its source. Instead of using bits of hair, blood or fingernail to curse or cast love
spells on others—the standard, vulgar view of what magick is—initiates of the Temple used links to themselves to affect their own destinies.

DNA forms the best magickal link possible to one’s own self, a perfect
holographic splinter, containing everything necessary to create yourself anew. Willingly put in contact with a symbolic representation of intent, a message is produced and directly sent not only to the non-conscious mind but also to the conscious universe which one inhabits. Such is the bewildering, though incredibly effective, realm of sorcery. (These are also the exact principles that the nascent science of Radionics operates on—readers are directed to the research of Duncan Laurie for an in-depth look at the directions this type of “magick” can be taken in.)

Regardless of any supernatural effects experienced in connection with
such experiments, a deeper process was initiated—a dialogue begun
between each Temple initiate and their “true will,” their core reason for
existing, that the truly important aspects of life might be fully tuned
into and the background static cancelled out as much as possible.

Genesis Breyer P-Orridge has often stated that the primary “teaching”
of TOPY was discipline; that is, discipline in focusing on and actualizing
the life one actually wants to live, regardless of social pressure or
constraint. In that respect a Quentin Crisp might be a more apt symbol
of the type of “initiate” the Temple wished to produce than an Israel
Regardie. Magick was never the primary goal of TOPY, though the
organization is most often remembered as a magickal or paramasonic
order; rather, it was one tool to be used in the formulation and execution
of a radically new approach to life outside the confines of the mundane.
(Though, if it’s magick you want, then backwards, sideways, crossways,
and loopwise secrets of magick are manifested throughout this text,
mirroring the potential of magick to reach through time—as if time
were a single, fluid object—to make its point known.)

While TOPY conducted its decade-long ritual, Psychick Television
worked overtime with a rotating cast of contributors to provide the
soundtrack, forming part of an incredibly fertile if often disjointed
period in the evolution of the Industrial genre that Throbbing Gristle
had spawned. While Coil, Current 93 and Nurse With Wound spent
most of the 1980s delving directly into the darkest and most unsavory
facets of TG’s legacy, Psychic TV (thanks, in large part, to regular
consumption of MDMA), moved from an early focus on tribal, wolfpackstyle
declarations of war on man’s sleepwalking state and into a fully
psychedelic (or, rather, hyperdelic), Merry Prankster-esque cheerleader
squad for sex, drugs and magick. (When PTV toured America in the
late Eighties, they brought along a tour bus painted in full hyperdelic
drag, on the front of which they painted “Even Futher,” slyly upping the
ante on the original Merry Pranksters’ acid test bus.)

Following a near-breakthrough to major chart success with “Godstar,”
a hymn to the late Rolling Stone Brian Jones, Psychic TV and TOPY
became early adopters and proselytizers of the English rave scene
(Genesis Breyer P-Orridge is credited with popularizing the phrase
“acid house” after a particularly fortuitous record-shopping trip in
Detroit). By 1988 the role of Genesis’ primary collaborator had rotated
from Alex Fergusson to electronics guru Fred Giannelli, a collaboration
which led to Psychic TV’s Jack the Tab, Tekno Acid Beat and the nearmasterpiece Towards thee Infinite Beat, a haunting, very personal album
centered around passionate diatribes against mankind’s innate need for
warfare (“Horror House” and “Jigsaw,” later to be revisited in live sets on
the eves of both wars in the Persian Gulf) and elegies for Brion Gysin
(“Bliss”) and Ian Curtis of Joy Division, who was slotted to become a
full member of Psychic TV at the time of his suicide in 1980 (“I. C.
Water”). The entire lyric of “Jigsaw” was a combination of a backwards,
a forwards and a combination of backwards, forwards and whispered
vocals using writings from various Processean publications. “Bliss”, in
contrast mixed Scientology speak with the music of Jajouka.

Acid house was the apex of TOPY’s efforts, a widescale scene which
allowed for the type of ecstatic, transcendental and magickal bliss that
Brion Gysin had found in Morocco in the panpipes of the Master
Musicians of Jajouka and introduced to Brian Jones shortly before his
untimely demise. Consider the twenty-year arc between the release
of Brian Jones Presents the Pipes of Pan at Jajouka in 1968 and the
explosion of the acid house scene in 1988. Bachir Attar, the most
recent Master Musician, lived with Genesis and Lady Jaye for a year,
collaborating with Thee Majesty and other projects. Music is the most
effective medium extant for the communication of emotion, and the
deepest expression of the essence of culture. Manipulation or outright
destruction of a culture’s music has, therefore, been one of the primary
strategies of imperial domination. Western music has at times been
particularly concerned with the nullification of anything unstructured,
sexually open, “savage,” “uncivilized,” or otherwise concerned with the
joy of life or which speaks to the “old” parts of the brain.

Genesis Breyer P-Orridge’s mentor Brion Gysin, confronted with the
horror of Western cultural and ontological hegemony when a friend
visiting him in Morocco tuned a radio to a classical station, tellingly
snapped at him to shut it off immediately, shouting that it was “too white!”.While involved in the COUM Transmissions performance art collective
and the mail art scene in the early 1970s, P-Orridge created collages with
the phrase “E Hate Stockhausen” repeated over and over. The mission
statement of Throbbing Gristle was to create anti-muzak, and disrupt the
control frequencies of civilization by any means necessary; the lessons of
TG were reincorporated within Psychic TV and increasingly oriented
towards producing transcendental bliss. The Master Musicians of Jajouka
provided a template, but it wasn’t until 1988 that the stars aligned for
Pan, God of Panic, to sound his cry across the world.

The initiates of the Temple ov Psychick Youth, weaned on Jajouka and
the Dreamachine, had already habituated themselves to the states of
mind that would be produced en masse by acid house, Ecstasy and
computer-generated rave visuals, and became the vanguard of this new
eruption of delerium. Hence would Bou Jeloud, Pan, Baphomet, be
shepherded into public view yet again, and the mask of control slip, just
slightly, for a brief few years, for a whole generation. By the time the
Criminal Justice Bill was passed in the UK, effectively outlawing raves,
the man behind the curtain had already been revealed, control sliced up
as if by Burroughs’ expertly-targeted scissors…

Throughout its eleven-year lifespan, TOPY aimed to transgress—
against Church, State, the nuclear family, and reality itself. Of course,
transgression against modern culture is often quickly short-circuited,
since culture will sooner or later get round to assimilating its “opposition” by mass-producing a watered-down facsimile—not that the authorities take this macro-cultural mechanism into account when dealing with the vanguard of such innovation.

Consider the current mass popularity of body piercing, introduced to
TOPY by Alan Oversby, a.k.a. Mr. Sebastian, a former art teacher who
had left his position to promote tattooing and piercing in the gay leather
and BDSM community in London. That was one of many phenomena
that TOPY “culturally engineered” the wider acceptance of. Body
piercing is now an adolescent mandate; yet in 1987 Mr. Sebastian (who
provided the vocals on “A Message From the Temple,” a track on Force
thee Hand ov Chance that was the initial open call to affiliation with
the Temple) was arrested in the UK government raid known as Project
Spanner, along with fifteen other men from the BDSM community.
He was subsequently charged with assault with actual bodily harm for
consensually piercing a man’s penis, as well as using anesthetic without
a license and sending obscene material (piercing photos) through the
mail. This is now a service that is available at relatively low cost in
almost every metropolitan area in the Western world. In 1987, though,
Mr. Sebastian was considered a threat to society and was sentenced to
fifteen years, later suspended to two years. His profession and life were
destroyed; he died, broken-hearted, in 1996.

Operation Spanner was only one tragedy of many in a very bleak
English political climate. Wars of imperial futility in the Falklands
and Libya; nuclear gridlock; proposed concentration camps for AIDS
patients; crackdowns on alternative cultures of all shapes and sizes;
constant bloodshed over Ireland; environmental degradation; economic
hell. America—with the resurgence of the religious right; secret wars;
CIA-supported dictators; socially engineered crack panic; and Mutually
Assured Destruction—was hardly better. “The Eighties cower before
me, and are abased,” Aleister Crowley prophesied in The Book of the
Law, speaking for the Egyptian warrior god Ra-Hoor-Khuit. In such a
climate, TOPY was, first and foremost, a survival strategy. If it were to
survive—in Margaret Thatcher’s England much as in Ronald Reagan’s
(or, verily, George W. Bush’s) America—magick had to defend itself.

If, as Mrs. Thatcher famously quipped to Woman’s Own magazine, “There
is no such thing as society,” then the Temple sought to prove her wrong ex
nihilo, both in the UK and abroad. The tribal mindset present in both punk
and, later, rave was refined in TOPY’s occultural laboratory, providing
- for better or worse—a sense of family, belonging, commitment, and
self—expression where previously there had been none.

Along with direct predecessors Aleister Crowley and Timothy Leary,
Genesis Breyer P-Orridge ranks as one of magick’s greatest propagandists,
which he has been alternately deified and reviled for, much as Crowley
and Leary were. The British authorities and tabloid press were not the
only forces with which Genesis and TOPY had to contend; another was
the occult “establishment,” or, rather, the “Museum of Magick,” as Genesis
calls them, who were hardly pleased with the mainstreaming of what was
previously considered “dangerous” (and certainly privileged) information.

The Ordo Templi Orientis or OTO, a Masonic body founded in Germany
in the late Nineteenth Century and later captained and reformulated by
Aleister Crowley in the early Twentieth, can be considered the clearest
precedent to TOPY, a secret society created as an access point into the
world of magick. Neither the OTO nor TOPY were teaching orders,
existing instead to foster socialization around occult ideas—halfway
points for those interested in the hidden undercurrents of reality, training wheels that, when eventually discarded, would lead the individual eithertowards more abstruse orders of robed ritualists or, preferably, onto their own two feet and their own personal apotheosis.

Such organizations have been a running theme in Western history. As one
slides into internal fighting and decay, another rises to take its place. Genesis has often related to me that during TOPY’s heyday, Hymenaeus Beta, then and current Outer Head of the Caliphate OTO, felt that TOPY was truly
representing, and doing the work of, the active current that the OTO had
mined in the early half of the century, whereas his current job as head of the OTO was more akin to that of a museum curator.

The story of TOPY’s last days is, of course, central to the myth it has left.By the early 1990s the group had grown to a strength of nearly 10,000
connected, if not necessarily active, individuals across the globe. In February 1992 Genesis Breyer P-Orridge was notified by telegram—the P-Orridge family were in Kathmandu, Nepal at the time using their PTV income and donations from the wider TOPY Nett Work to feed and clothe Tibettan
refugees, beggars and lepers, sometimes as many as 300 daily—that his
home and TOPY Station had been raided by Scotland Yard in connection
with a trumped-up Satanic abuse charge. On the back of an old Psychic
TV video done years earlier by Derek Jarman for Channel 4—ironically
the same channel now alleging the abuse—P-Orridge and TOPY were
accused of chaining women in the basement of the house in Brighton,
impregnating the women, aborting the fetuses and then forcing them to
eat the remains. This is ironic for two reasons—the first being that the
same story has been regularly used since the Fourth Century to smash
pagan groups, since Epiphanius of Salamis accused the Borborite Gnostic
sect of the same crime; the second being that the P-Orridges didn’t even
have a basement.

After choosing exile in California instead of returning to England,
where the public was already crying for blood from the scapegoat of
the week, Gen made the decision to dissolve TOPY, issuing a final
publication—Thee Green Book, reprinted for the first time in this
book—and a postcard reading, simply, “Changed Priorities Ahead.” It
had become obvious that TOPY’s moment was over; that the mission,
which had only ever been meant as a temporary experiment, was over.
It had only been Here to Go. Though some splinter groups remained
(and remain) intact, continuing to use the TOPY name and logo,
the current moved on, leaving what amount to more displays in the
Museum of Magick. As TOPY was ending, a new world—of digital
media and cyberculture—was being born, one that TOPY had acted
as a midwife for. The ritual now complete, the Temple was banished.

While Psychic TV dissolved along with TOPY in the early 1990s, it would
go on to reincarnate for the Larry Thrasher-produced Trip Reset and, later,
in its current touring lineup as PTV3. Baba Larriji also featrures in the
Expanded Poetry project co-founded with Bryin Dall, Thee Majesty.

Fifteen years on, we are left with an occult landscape that has been given its shape and direction by the Temple, whether it is publicly acknowledged or not. The vital current, of course, has mutated and evolved once again—notinto a physical order this time, but into dispersal across the World Wide Web and mass publishing. While this provides for an incredibly unique
period of open access to occult information, one can hardly help but long
for the immediacy and community of a physical network in contrast to
the endless flamewars, constant degradation of information quality, and
terminal loss of context that are the Internet’s stock in trade.

The TOPY years represented a period in which magick was resituated
in its natural context—as a survival mechanism, in the urban blight of
modern civilization just as it was in the dark forests of precivilization.
Though there may be nothing here now but the recordings, the recordings
are there for all to see, to learn from, to improve upon.

This is one story of the Temple, in one world, in one place and time. The
names and the details change each time it recreates itself anew. It learns,
it processes, it incorporates and evolves; thickens its own plot. My story
is there for all to read, etched in genetic spirals along its supporting
columns. Yours is too. Remember this.

Remember Earth from space. Sun goes round as we breathe as one.
Human totality breathes in, breathes out. Cars and electric lights, birth
and death, sex, disease, running through the long grass at dawn, walking
the ox across the steep mountain path, loading the Kalashnikov, spinning
the prayer wheels at dusk, laying the child in the grave, singing the old
songs. Listen to the sound of our breath from space. A secret name of
the divine. The name of a ritual in which we must all take part. A temple
space in which we are all assigned office. The office which you remember
when you are...

The Temple is eternal, shimmering on the horizon. It is a ghost. It is the
specter that answers us at the séance of our most secret desires.

There is one Process and there are many processes.
Jason Louv, Vancouver and New York City, 2006 Era Vulgaris



LETTER TO JEAN-PIERRE TURMEL

Gen
Hackney
London E8
Timefix: 23 April 1982

Dearest Jean-Pierre,

E was watching an American film on TV last week, there was a lively,
strangely attractive woman who discovered she had cancer. She got married
to her lover, knowing she would die, then gradually she got more and more ill and haggard until she died. E had to switch it off, and cried so much because it reminded me of Danny. It was as if suddenly E had understood everything about that tragedy and my heart fell open and wept.

It was good of you to understand, to predict to yourself, that E needed a silence to develop, rest, re-orient and evolve and plan. To grow used to living with a new, different person. Of course you knew E think from our talks and our theories that TG had to end, and now E am so glad we had thee courage to do it. Now, already, it’s like ghosts, talking about characters in a movie E saw, only it doesn’t open my heart, or make tears. Indifferent. Purely history,trapped in time, other people’s business, other people’s news.

Butter it’s true, just as TG supported thee ghost of COUM Transmissions,
so Psychic TV and Psychick Youth will have to accept a ghost of TG, butter
that is thee organic evolution of one dream, thee visualization that makes all things possible through a flexing of will, an expression of imagination.

In thee past, even in TG, E have to admit privately that E was interested
in, seduced by thee mass media attention, E wanted to be LIKED, to get thee
credit we deserved, E enjoyed to be written about, it affirmed my existence
because my self-image was weak and paranoid. Thee biggest change now is
that genuinely, in my deepest interior E am DISINTERESTED in what
anyone thinks about all our future actions and projects. That their opinion
might affect our financial or technical resources is of academic practical interest only and if they chicken out and do not support what we really are this time E REALLY don’t care. Before, E acted disinterested, E understood that it was a necessary state and stance, butter a private part of me flirted and dreamed in a desire for flattery and security. It is not surprising to me, butter E am sure it would be to many outside observers, just how near to being right back at thee beginning Sleazy & E are now. Our new musick is receiving more coumfused reaction than it deserves. It’s just, JUST soundtracks, functional.Butter no one wants to release that, they say, they want MY voice & TG noise. Hah. Butter then we never actually ASKED anyone to release it in thee first place. Assumptions seem one of thee key elements of cultural alchemy & death. If you notice we do not court thee media now, steering clear of instant new roles in relation to TG past. Sleazy & E thought it would be a dangerous tactic to release a record immediately, if ever, or indeed to do anything in public for at least a yera or more. We are asleep, forgotten men whose ghost drifts.

The mass’s desires, non-evolution, conservatism, closing doors are still our enemy. We DO understand that. We have put a few suggestions into thee
arena in that interview, we do not have to manifest any of them. We have
& feel NO obligation. Not to a public, ugh, or past, or to DO anything ever
agen. We are free agents. We shall do, simply, what we want when & if it
appeals to us at thee time. And no consistency of vision or direction need apply on any level. We desire choice.

Sleazy has arrived with Geoff Rushton of Stabmental (formerly), now an
initiate of thee Temple. Today E renew his probationary gestures, relive thee pain of birth, trim thee style of ascetic manipulation and eat thee breath of babies.

There is no why… anymore… there is just us…

Approval & disapproval are moral stances that have no place in our vision
here. There is no morality. E want to talk to a vision, a destiny, not a public. We would rather have five or six people committed totally to a coherent yet subliminal dream, than anyone at all that is merely a dilettante-ish dabbler in gestures. We are stripping away thee final strips of camouflage and revealing what we always wanted to be and do once and for all, and don’t give a fuck what ANYONE thinks, about ANY response or opinion or blocking action.We will do exactly what we want all thee time and concentrate totally upon realization of any & all our FANTASIES AND desires even if we get attacked, persecuted or destroyed. There is nothing else we can do anymore. To be ignored or reviled doesn’t matter. We shall be simply what we desire and no more. And anything that appears in opposition is merely a ministration, a service in thee path of focused imagination and will.

Your theories about a new elite human being, we approve and understand.
Thee mass is to be manipulated only to our ends, if necessary, butter primarily to be, most simply, ignored and deflected.

Your interest in evidence & deception is interesting. You know in a way,
deception works like transparency. We now declare thee exact truth of what
we are doing, at last we are honest, yet thee actual effect is a deception because no one is listening to what we say, because they analyze from assumption based upon past assumptions. In fact they never listen to us at all. So they deceive, deception. It is psychic youth that makes us reach coumclusions so in time with each other. Your analysis is so clear…

Our emphasis from now on is as a philosophical, occult movement; a church
without orthodoxy or dogma, an elite organization dedicated to coumtinuance
of individual choice and options. Discipline of thee self, involvement to
whatever degree a person wishes. As little or as much, where what you give
equals what you get, where No is as good an answer as Yes, where thought
is stimulated so that response is always a mystery. No guaranteed response
expected or requested. A truly non-dogmatic, irreligious church. Psychick Youth thee end in itself. Thee Temple a symbol by its very existence, its work, as an agency and provocateur of ideas & imagination expansion. Visualization,concentration make things happen, events are created by dreaming. So we will encourage self-power, our aim is to becoum redundant eventually to each person involved, to constantly trigger and abandon, to becoum obsolete as we succeed. As a person realizes what we mean, they don’t need us anymore. We won’t want huge numbers of followers, most churches desire, measure their success and importance by thee numbers of followers they have, and by thee number who say YES unquestioningly to everything their LEADERS say. We would rather have six INDIVIDUALS than six million sycophants. We are here to express possibilities and free associations, not to control or restrict anybody. Restrictions are self-imposed for neuroses’ sake. We recognize no leaders, we merely implant thee seeds of immortality.

Huh, E wrote that, then turned over your page & hit your saying thee problem is not of “leader” butter of masses. YES YES YES. We do understand. It’s all inevitable. Right, god it IS uncanny how we coincide, maybe we are each other, or maybe just evidence of what we believe, thee imagination made real. E hate christianism and leftism and suppression and control so much. E feel sick to think of thee masses. We have declared our intent to generate or at least symbologize a new elite made up of leaders only in thee Psychick Youth. An ultra-elite, justified in itself for no other reason than we chose to exist and demonstrate an alternative method of evolutionary change and structure.

Thee Temple is a church of only LEADERS, no followers. A radical step.
Even thee Nazis, though they bred an elite of leaders, still wanted to control thee masses, lead them and entangle themselves with them. We want thee leaders alone. Fuck thee sleeping masses. We have no desire to be superior rulers of boring, dull masses of people who we despise. We want JUST leaders. A church full of leaders, only leaders and not leading anyone. Merely cohabiting.A separate existence for OUR satisfaction. Why waste all that time,energy and vision dealing with boring masses of people. We’ve got betterthings to do. Enjoying and stimulating ourselves. A self-centered religion instead of a crippling, selfless Christian ideal.


A PERSONAL MESSAGE FROM
THEE TEMPLE OV PSYCHICK YOUTH


We have reached a crisis point.

We are aware that whole areas of our experience of life are missing.

We are faced with a storm of thee fiercest strength known.

We are faced with the debasement of man to a creature without feelings,
without knowledge and pride of SELF.

We are faced with dissolution far more complete than death. A New Dark Ages.

We have been conditioned, encouraged and blackmailed into self-restriction, into a narrower and narrower perception of ourselves, our importance and our potential.

All this constitutes a Psychick Attack of thee highest magnitude.

Acceptance is defeat.

Resistance is dangerous and unpredictable but for those who realize the
totality of defeat, resistance must be thee only option conceivable.

RIGHT NOW you have these alternatives:

To remain forever part of a sleeping world…

To gradually abandon thee hopes and dreams of childhood…

To be permanently addicted to the drug of the commonplace…

Or, to fight alongside us in thee Temple ov Psychick Youth! A New Way On!

Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth has been convened in order to act as a catalyst and focus for the Individual development of all those who wish to reach inwards and strike out. Maybe you are one of these, already feeling different, dissatisfied, separate from thee mass around you, instinctive and alert? You are already one of us. The fact you have this message is a start in itself.

Don’t think we are going to tell you what to do, what to be. The world is full of institutions that would be delighted if you thought and did exactly what they told you. Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth is not and NEVER WILL BE one of them. We offer no dogmas, and no promises of comfort or easy answers.

You are going to have to find out your Self, we offer only the method of survival as a True Being, we give you back to yourself, we support your Individuality in which the Spirit and Will united burn with passion & pride.

Our function is to direct and support. Work that is needlessly repeated is simply wasteful. Accordingly we will be making public books, manuscripts & other recordings of our progress, in various formats, video and audio. These do not contain meaningless dogma but are examples of our interests & beliefs in action. They are made not as entertainment, but as experience, not the mundane experience of day-to-day routine but of the Spirit & Will triumphant

Thursday, December 3, 2009

Early performance art days of Lady Jaye

Some info on the performance art days of the dearly missed Lady Jaye ...


Sheky(lady jaye) with another member of the BlackLips Theatre cult

Formely also known as Miss Jacky and Shecky Domination, back in the 1980s and early 1990s, s/he was an actress and model who performed in the original House Of Domination at Jackie 60. S/he appeared in Off-Off Broadway theater productions and experimental films and was a member of BlackLips Theatre Cult with Antony of the Johnsons and the so-called “lunatic” Dueling Bankheads. Scott Ewalt met Jaye when they both were in the go-go dance troupe at Jackie 60 and recalled her as “always considerate and always so extremely elegant.”


Lady Jaye,then known as Shecky Domination on the left...


Genesis and Jaye met each other in 1993 on West 23rd Street in the dungeon of a mutual friend, writer Terence Sellers. “I’d crashed on the floor and woke up the next morning and saw through the doorway a tall slim and beautiful woman in a Brian Jones haircut and 1960s style jeans, smoking a cigarette.” Although friends warned her Genesis was “bad news,” it was love at first sight for both.

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Gen interviews ZIA in 2000

A few notes on the wonderful music and theory of ZIA  for those who may not have heard of the project..

from http://ziaspace.com/
ZIA is an exclusively electronic band who began performing on the East Coast in 1992. Founded by Elaine Walker, ZIA bangs out pro-space and sci-fi music on futuristic instruments. All of the synths are triggered live with drum sticks. Microtonal musical scales run rampant throughout the ZIA repertoire. In the pop genre this is a monumental task which adds an eerie, futuristic edge to the songs. ZIA was together for 11 years in Boston and NYC, and relocated to Arizona 2003. ZIA has 3 full length albums and two EPs. The newest release, Martians, was officially released at the first XPrize Cup! The video for the title track was filmed on Devon Island in the Canadian High Arctic (75°North), commissioned by the Haughton-Mars Project. ZIA is currently developing a larger Vegas-stye show, complete with a spacey story line!



GENESIS P-ORRIDGE INTERVIEWS ZIA

Genesis P-Orridge interviewed ZIA at their Brooklyn apartment in 2000! It was an absolute pleasure.


Part 1 of 2

Genesis: "Can you give us a very brief history of ZIA? And I'll interrupt you and we'll go off in tangents, because that's always more interesting."

Elaine: "Well, ZIA started off in 1991 and our first show was actually in 1992, because I was trying to gather up some band members to play these very odd instruments. It's hard to find people to play these MIDI triggers with sticks."

Genesis: "So we need to know what these odd instruments are."

Elaine: "Well my idea was to perform the music using no standard instruments at all. No keyboards, no guitars, no regular drums. Just completely new and different instruments. One of the reasons is because the music's microtonal. We use different tunings other than just 12 notes per octave, and to play that on a keyboard, it's kind of difficult to keep track of where you are. So by putting the notes on these different MIDI triggers and hitting them with sticks, I could just teach people patterns that they'd memorize for each song."

Genesis: "And always be in the microtonal range."

Elaine: "Yes"

Genesis: "So you pre-program the microtonal side of it, and more or less wherever the musicians hit is within the parameters of the music."

Elaine: "Right. The musicians just need to know which pads to hit when, and just memorize patterns. So I was trying to find drummers to audition to do this, and drummers had a hard time, and guitar players didn't really use sticks and neither did keyboard players. So I was having a hard time finding anyone. Vibraphone players usually wouldn't be into the style, the fact that it was more hardcore industrial. I was screaming and what not. So finally, the two people from the other band I was in helped me with ZIA. So the original line-up was me, Lisa Sirois and Noel McKenna. We were also in D.D.T., another hardcore industrial band."

Genesis: "And this was in Boston?"

Elaine: "Yes, that was in Boston."

Genesis: "Where were you trained? How do you even know what microtonal is?"

Elaine: "Well I had classical piano all my life, and then I went to Berlkee for Music Synthesis. And it wasn't until my last year at Berklee that one of my professors introduced microtonal music to me. I'd always thought about it, I'd always wondered why people don't use the notes in between, but I never knew, really, how to go about it."

Genesis: "Or more accurately, why don't people in the West use those notes?"

Elaine: "Yeah, exactly. In fact, at Berklee, they call Western 12 tone jazz harmony just Harmony class. That used to bother me. So in 1991, I heard my teacher come in and perform this microtonal song, he actually sang the song and played a tape for the class. It made my hair stand on end, and ever since then, I haven't written a 12 tone piece."

Genesis: "So that brings us up to ZIA. Can you explain what your interpretation at this point of microtonal is? Not the traditional academic one, but your vision of what microtonal is, and why it's your bridge with music you create."

Elaine: "Well, I think people, over the years, over the centuries, especially in Western music, have experimented with different rhythms and different sounds. Now, with electronic music, people experiment with a lot of different sounds and timbres and styles of music. Really, the only thing left is pitch. People haven't been experimenting with different pitches. It's one of the three parameters of music, and it's like another dimension no one's dived into. And people in other countries have been using microtones, so I feel like I want to explore that whole area. Sooner or later, someone might look at it and analyse it and figure out a theory that they can teach for these different tunings."



Genesis: "So you actually are interested in changing the face of music? We were talking before about punk, for example, and once, I was asked what was the difference between punk and industrial. I was formulating the idea of industrial music while I was auditioning Billy Idol, for example. So I'm yawning at the actual structure, the archetype of rock and roll. And this isn't a negative because I still think a lot of it was fabulous, the energy was amazing, so I'm not going to put it down. Punk was trying to change the face to rock and roll, specifically, I think, whereas industrial was trying to change the face of all music in the West. The rest of the world knew this already, that it was actually an open door for anything and everything available. Anything and everything is ultimately music in some way."



Elaine: "I feel that the 12 tone tuning is as arbitrary as feet and inches, or ounces and pounds."



Genesis: "So you're on the side of the brick wall."



Elaine: "Yes, because it's art. Feet and inches I wouldn't really protest because it's just a measurement, even though it's kind of silly. But with art and music, you have to smash down all the walls."



Genesis: [to Liz and Hae Young] "So you've both committed yourselves to this project ZIA, can you explain how you got drawn to work on this project?"



Hae Young: "Mainly because I was interested in the instrumentation, not using normal instrumentation and it being all electronic. And, also, the idea of microtonal music, I'm very interested in that as well."



Liz: "Well, I didn't have an outlet for any of my synthesis work I had done up to that point."



Genesis: "Are you also classically trained?"



Liz: "Yeah. All of us are piano players."



Genesis: "All piano players? Isn't the piano a fantastic instrument? It's one of the ultimate instruments."



Liz: "And all of my playing to the public has been piano and vocals and weird instrumentations, but it was not electronic at all. And that was my other interest. So ZIA has provided a good outlet to physically be able to play out, not in school, but in clubs and learn how the business works on that end."



Elaine: "To me, in Liz and Hae Young, I see me when I joined D.D.T. I was straight out of college, and I didn't really know how to go about being in a band. I'd been in bands in the 80's, but it was in New Mexico and wasn't anything that really went anywhere. I didn't have any experience with booking shows, or even getting the band gear set-up really happening. So joining D.D.T. really taught me everything I know."



Genesis: "What Zia is doing now is potentially as radical and innovative as what Throbbing Gristle were doing in 1975 . There are cycles that happen where one thing is built until it becomes a formula, which was not my intention, like industrial music. And someone else has to come along and break that down. The new generation is supposed to destroy the previous generation. One thing that fascinates me with ZIA is that it's confronting, if you like, the last bastion of westernization, western colonization, Judeo-Christian mechanisms, let's build printing presses, let's build weaving machines, let's make industry that deals with everything over and over again from the past. That's all based on repetitious formula and the expectation that you'll get the same thing again if you like it. We have factories to make things twice. Music is very much the same. That's why we called it 'industrial' to make that point. The whole way the west deals music is that it's repeatable. If someone's successful, we go 'oh yes, we can do that again.' 'She Loves You,' we can do that again, 'I Want To Hold Your Hand.' Even if it's someone like Iggy Pop."



Elaine: "You coined the word Industrial?"



Genesis: "Yes, on September 3, 1975, London Field's Park, in the morning, talking to Monte Cazazza. We were talking about what to call this music we were doing. Should we call it Factory Records? I thought that was too Warhol, too obvious. I said, 'well what about industrial'? We'd been talking about industrial this and industrial that all across the park. And the slogan was 'industrial music for industrial people."



Elaine: "See how much Genesis influenced me already? He hired Billy Idol, he coined the world Industrial."



Gen: "It's funny because people don't realize. It's odd to think that there was a specific hour of the day, and before that time, a genre didn't exist! How unusual in the terms of culture and music, that it should be so specific. The same with punk rock, Malcolm McLaren, in the same year, did the same thing. Although the word punk was already around, so there was a kind of a grey area. But he was the one who pinned it down. And then Mark Perry started 'sniffing glue,' made the first xeroxed fanzine at the same time. And he printed this page, learn 3 chords, form a band. Then, in the next issue, he interviewed me and I said, why learn 3 chords? Why learn any chords? Which is what you're saying in a way, why learn western music? One of the first premises of TG was no drummer, as that's rock and roll. And men always played lead guitar, so let Cosi play guitar, since she's a girl. But she said, 'I can't play.' That's even better! And she said 'it's too heavy' so we got a jigsaw and chopped the sides off. And she ended up with a stick guitar."



Hae Young: "You invented the stick guitar!"



Genesis: "By accident! It was that simple. She said 'it's too heavy' and we went [makes cutting sounds] - how's that?"



Elaine: "Rotary saw or saber saw?"



Genesis: "Saber saw."



Elaine: "We've got to know the details."



Genesis: "So what I'm really getting at, we're at a dangerous spot. I have this feeling that there are hot spots in culture where something becomes inevitable. A really major shift in the way something's done. And I think that happened with TG, and that happened with Elvis, and that happened with the Beatles, although they were less conscious of what was happening. There are moments in time with popular culture, be it art, music, or writing, where a shift is inevitable and all the previous rules get thrown out the window once and for all. There are 2 things that I feel make ZIA potentially very important and potentially able to do this. One of them is that you've even abandoned the game of the destruction of traditional instruments, which is the source of industrial music. Destroy rock and roll by destroying its instruments, and including electronics and the classical electronic experimental concepts. You're saying, forget all instruments, and forget Western tone scales and all these control systems. So the first part of the question is, do you believe that ZIA is at one of these intersections where it's inevitable, whether it's you or someone else, there's another major change happening in music. And part 2 is that I think it's significant that it's 3 female virtuosos who are choosing to do this."



Elaine: "That's a coincidence, I wasn't looking for just females."



Genesis: "Well I would argue that that's the inevitability of the change. There's been a huge shift since the 70's in terms of acceptance of women of all types in all genres of music. But there hasn't been a spawning of music in an absolutely new direction as of yet. So my first question is, are you the intersection of where the next inevitable big shift will happen?"



Elaine: "I hope so. But my fear is that people don't notice that we're that different, as we play pop music. I'm somehow able to write pop music with 10 notes per octave. I think the only thing people notice as extremely different are the instruments. So I'm not sure how much of a huge change I'm going to make, breaking down the barriers of tonal music, when people might not even realize I'm doing that."



Liz: "The biggest thing that people notice is that we're not playing 'normal' instruments. We're hitting things. We're hitting things with sticks, but we're not drummers. We're triggering things, and everything has a technical reason behind it, but it's not a guitar, not drums, not bass, not anything conventional. And that is what seems to stick in peoples minds, other than the beats which drive them to dance."



Hae Young: "It kind of builds a bridge. There's lots of people who play total experimental music, but we're doing pop music."



Elaine: "I guess that's what I've been trying to do."



Hae Young: "People get into our music, and it gets them interested in unusual instruments and styles."



Genesis: "So you educate, you can lead people across that bridge. So they understand more of the technical side of things."



Elaine: "I think, through interviews, it helps people to learn, and maybe putting a little note on the cd saying this is microtonal. People gradually realize what we're doing."



Liz: "In the club scene, we're the type of band where they don't know where to stick us with other people. So we've played with reggae bands, with death rock, we've played with hard core, every possible style you can think of, we've played on the same bill. Because they don't know where to stick us. In Boston, there was a severe lacking of electronic bands. And they didn't want to stick us with DJ's, even though we're electronic. So we ended up getting put on bills with some of the most interesting combinations of musical styles. But it totally works."



Hae Young: "Or when there are other bands with samplers or electronics, we'd get put on the same bill just because of that. It doesn't matter what kind of music they are."



Liz: "Or it would be an all girls show, with 5 different styles."



Genesis: "How do you feel about the gender issue?"



Elaine: "I don't know, it's just silly. It's like reversed sexism, you know it's sexism but it's to your advantage."



[At this point the phone rang, and then it was decided to open a bottle of wine. Contact us if you’d like to be alerted when the 2nd half of this interview is finally up!]
 
note: I have never seen the 2nd part of this interview surface anywhere....

Saturday, November 28, 2009

Thee archive is catching on....

Thanks to all who have decided to follow thee archive here! As always, feel free to contact me with any requests for information topics...I will dig it up out of my own Gen archive or do my best to find whatever you guys and gals would like to see here.There is a lack of Throbbing Gristle material here on the site in comparasion to the other material but that will change soon. Any others you know with interest, please let them know about thee archive!

keep in touch...
Jacurutu:3

"information is like a bank

our job is to rob that bank"
—Genesis P-Orridge in Decoder

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Gibby Miller and Ryan Martin of Dais records discuss the "early worm" release and Gen's audio archives...

excerpt from an august 2008 interview conducted by Cory Card with Gibby Miller and Ryan Martin of Dais records,concerning their work with Gen,early worm,and the audio archives




A number of your titles revolve around reissuing the archival recordings of Genesis P-Orridge. How did you guys hook up with Genesis? Why do you think these recordings are just coming to light at this point in time?

GM: Ryan is the archivist to Genesis and he/r archives... I'll let Ryan tell this story. Our ability to release this fantastic material comes down to trust and friendship.

RM: Well, to make a very long and personal story as short as possible… A few years ago, I started working with Genesis P-Orridge, he/r wife Jackie, and Eddie O’Dowd by helping out with website stuff and archive maintenance. Over the course of a few years, we all became very close and personal friends and worked more in depth with research throughout Genesis’ massive and extensive archives. Having access to such a wealth of obscure knowledge and one-of-a-kind documents and artifacts makes it an invaluable resource. For years, I would make mention to Genesis that s/he should really make use of all the recordings/ tapes that are sitting unheard in the archives. I was always given the brush off and the excuse that “no one wants to hear that old stuff” excuse (the same excuse that William S. Burroughs gave Genesis almost 30 years prior upon finally giving Genesis permission to release the Nothing Here But The Recordings sessions on Industrial Records). Finally Genesis gave in and warned me that the recordings were old, dated, and just not good, but said if I wanted to put them out myself…that I had he/r 100% blessing. Upon listening to many hours of reels of tape, I was blown away by what I had heard... and so the story goes.

"I.C. Water" Ian Curtis Remembered by Genesis P-Orridge in 2003

"I.C. Water"
Ian Curtis Remembered by Genesis P-Orridge

It has become an overworked phrase in our commodified and superficial times, but this is an "heartfelt" song. It waited 10 years to come through me and even then, staring at a wall as gray as the cover of "Still" as the words poured out, it was painful and distressing. I heard it as if I was hearing someone else sing. Like all the best songs, it wrote itself directly onto tape. The following excerpt of writing is taken from a chapter of my autohagiography "GENESIS - THE LAST BOOK OF CREATION" scheduled to be published by Creation Books U.K. January 1st 2000.


My feeling, looking back at my brief but precious friendship with Ian Curtis, is that he and I were intensely anomalous. We were born in the same post-industrial manufacturing slave vortex of Manchester, England. We both had an obsessive and sadly disturbed attachment to melancholic poetic lyricism and we both tended to view experience in a minute to minute way, as a metaphor and a fatalistic destiny. When the pseudo-political, and apolitical posturing of ³punk² was the norm we both felt stylistically sickly and socially stunted. There was a cynical disregard for society that could often express itself in self-hatred, for failing to make people understand, failing to make them really SEE the hypocrisies and the
betrayals, the ludicrousness of inherited ideas of relationships and reasons for living. Yet, coupled with that commitment to the point of death to try and make people share our feelings of ennui, was an equally deep distrust of empty, sycophantic acceptance. An isolation that knew no bounds. It is so hard at a certain point in one¹s material existence to make other people realize how real one¹s angst and frustration can be.

The only way that I can describe how that connection between us really felt, beyond the obvious fact of mutual recognition of kindred, spectral, lost souls; of the "little boy lost in a world of demons" syndrome is to concede what has since become a cliche. We had an almost genetic Mancunian grimness of vision. If you saw Salford in the fifties and early sixties, Myra Hindley and Ian Brady would vindicate all interpretations of the proposal of "cultural inevitability".

The brutal mundanity of the post-Blitz environment itself spawned a neo-romantic detachment and kindled a fire of massive messianic motivation that became almost entirely about compounding and validating undistilled pointlessness for its own sake, taking as its medium an highly individualized perversion of excellence, covertly clothed in the trappings of popular culture. Of that most despised of contemporary art forms, rock music. Joy Division was Ian¹s fantasy of the implications for himself

Velvet Underground catalyzed against the mainstream of fashion. Throbbing Gristle was, quite consciously, exactly the same fantasy for myself. Rather than be crippled by having none of the usual skills, or ingredients normally eschewed for such a mission, both of us chose to let the available resources mature and fester in equal amounts, believing as we did, that the form would inarguably appear and succeed by virtue of our determination. This was an act of faith, a leap of faith, into the unknown pleasures of an metaphysical, and emotional highwire performance that required, for its illumination, the refusal of any manner of safety net.

This is how it was. Can you feel that almost erotic sense of purpose and that exquisitely tormenting sensation of irrevocability that devoured us? It is an expression of an idealism for living, of a rarefied fanaticism that truly conceives of all creativity as an holy act, a sacred task that leads to immolation or salvation and the acceptance of that risk is what permeates this path with potency and a contemporary shamanism that sets its practitioners apart.

To build something, in this case an aesthetic "jihad", that was not already publicly desired, that nobody in their right mind could possibly want, and then to relentlessly prove that they did want it after all, indeed, leave them feeling that it always existed, and was always so, that was the meaning, the necessary agenda to extricate ourselves from the horror. In the end, they would crave our tortured visions despite themselves, even despising themselves. That was, at the beginning, as far as we could see. It was enough. How we imagined the Velvet Underground¹s nihilism to be, especially on that first album, was a crucial trigger to this beginning. Later we would discover that a knowing musicology and ambition flavored our personalized, and self-justifying interpretations. Later we would substitute Jim Morrison¹s spiritual and emotional psychic- implosion as closer to the process we had volunteered our "selves" for.

All the while we were converting the outside world to our inner aesthetic Ian and I were depressingly aware that really, in the end, the audience and critics understood nothing, respected nothing, and protected nothing of our vulnerability on parade, our genuine pain. They saw nothing of the bottomless dead souls that fueled it all, nor the charade of charisma that disguised the obvious detachment from actually feeling truly alive that
underpinned the paradox of seeming to discuss a seclusion of perception whilst actually describing a state of absolute discomfort laid bare.

Not even the other band members of our respective groups really understood this, or really saw it. What was so fatally affecting us, the exposed morbidity of our onstage, on record personas, was dismissed all to conveniently as affectation. They were so close to the open wounds, they couldn¹t even address them. At times they chose not to believe they were real, or to sympathize. This compounded our cardinal angst, possessing us with a terrible foreboding of the emptiness dwelling symbiotically alongside the pivotal vacuity of humanity, friends and lovers alike.

We explained so much we appeared silent. We moved so many we appeared still.

This paradox of the "cry - for - help" misdiagnosed as superficial pop anthem has claimed others greater and lesser than Ian Curtis. Spirits that scream for acknowledgement. Hindsight maketh fools of us all.

I am forced to believe that Ian recognized a great part of himself in the role I was compelled to act out in Throbbing Gristle. An identical, careening, searingly adrift and isolated experience, desperately trapped in
the guise of radical self-destructive performer . Often bitter, suicidal and callously nihilistic.

We were never whole, nor never wholly connected, not even to the other members of the bands we were part of. We had secrets. Secrets kept from before those bands existed. Secrets that might have revealed why, for us, they were a necessity, not a contrivance. We had our own cathartic and therapeutic agendas. We suffered from an afflicted fanaticism of visionmbordering at times upon an individuated form of megalomania. No matter how the world chose to validate Joy Division or Throbbing Gristle, at the most private level of conception there remained a repulsing apprehension that it was all, in the sweet end, an enterprise of pearls before swine. A thing without substance.

The later lionization of both bands, by those self-same critics and arbiters of popular cultural taste who had ignorantly adored or hated us, became just more bitter-sweet evidence of the tawdriness of life in general and the music "business" in particular as it dilutes, absorbs, mythologizes and consumes into cultural impotence and obsolescence that which is actually a sincere crusade. Regardless of the very real mortal risks involved, we were engaged in a tenacious and careening search of the ultimate, yet detached, possibilities of daring to dream of the immortal. Of course, in retrospect this seems a flawed, naive way of looking at simply making music to some. Opening up the heart and soul in public. Learning in public, and experiencing pain as entertainment and entertainment as pain can consume even the recklessly strong. Nobody who is mediumistic can survive it without scars, without wounds, without weeping.

As far as I was concerned, in terms of the emotional turmoil eating away inside me, there was much I never bothered to tell the rest of Throbbing Gristle. Ian Curtis held back from Joy Division in this same way. Not onstage, but in his heart. Certain deeply uncomfortable considerations as to the hopelessness of life, certain connections between lyrics and secreted feelings and evenhidden references to the aesthetics and structures of personal ikons.

But I would share these secrets, these strategies and unspoken manipulations that were required by my insecurity to render the slightest touch of extracted absolution to my existentialism, in order to cosmetically lessen the burden of worthlessness. I shared these convoluted fears, and this underlying shame of even seeming to believe that I was, in private, that others imagined I appeared to be in public with Monte Cazazza and with Ian Curtis. I had no choice. The searing pain of seeing is so relentless and unforgiving. The contradictions are so crushing that someone has to be told. Otherwise the blackness opens up, we are sucked in, and it is the sensual annihilation our efforts have been so convolutedly designed to deflect us from that claims us. We begin by knowing intimately, and neo-sexually this seductive nothingness. Our flight leads us to posture and defy our fates in a grandiose copulation that, to maintain and protect our hardwon sense of being for a shimmering moment physically present and in time and place, requires, absolutely, an audience.

The audience is our anchor. They hold us here when the sirens and demons try to distract us. We hold on by our fingernails, unable to confess our terror, lest the mere movement of our jaw dislodge us and our sanity, slipping us effortlessly out into the abyss to the howling glee of the banshees. This sense of terror is very real. The puzzle is how it drives us towards that which we know wishes to consume us, committing us to purgatory. The edge of loss is within us, cutting its shape. The outline is blurred by the tumultuos mass. In solitude, it is clear. The white line around the lost body. Staying inside is so hard. Being outside is surrender. The audience is temporary camouflage.

Monte Cazazza understood, still understands ( Hello Monte!) . Ian Curtis
understood. I didn¹t HAVE TO EXPLAIN! Do you have any idea what a blessed relief it is to not have to explain anything? Not pretend anything? Not hide anything? Not have to remember what must not be said? To become, briefly, the beach and its rocks, accepting the forces of crashing waves from a place of equilibrium. The destructive forces are not calmed, but there is a chaotic balance.

This illness, this "sickness of the heart" is a little like a cruely imposed and imprisoning secret society. One that claims its members without prior agreement, unlike Faust, but requires an alleigance and exchange no less formidable. Its participants can channel its crippling powers through their dramatic crimes of entertainment through pain; through serial bloodlust; through military sadism or through political autism. Nothing ends this creeping dis-ease. The best its victims can hope for is a controlled bleeding, a steady release of pressure that just might reduce it to a point that lies just inside the boundaries of a bearable, but depleting, agony. The infected are all ways in crisis. Death is an ending of unremitting struggle, a dreamless sleep, a vast and implacable emptiness. To choose immersion in this gives life its only consistency. In blindness, so easily invoked by the closing of eyes, closer, a warm darkness envelops. A slow moving, viscous tar where repose is foetal. Suspended animation with only demons for company. Bad drinking partners. Worse lovers they make! And the source, the source of all this numbing futility is laughingly celebrated as "life".

I haven¹t talked about this before. Except to the little boy, alone again, that dwells in terror, deep within my heart. I never had the inclination. Something paralysed me. Something sacred. Something to revealing about my Self, as well as about Ian Curtis. The unbidden similaritites embeded in our feelings of desparation at that particular intersection of our lives left it hard for me to assess anything separately from his action. I knew it would be years before I was strong enough to tell my truth to my Self, and honour that I felt I saw within his.

But, now, I am compelled, and wish to, speak. I wish to make peace with the Ian Curtis whose secret and unknown pleasures were, I believe, of necessity never revealed to the world outside. Least of all those closer to him. What necessity can that be? Perhaps the necessity to try and find a trick to convince yourself of a plausible ideal for living, and a necessity to avoid acknowledging a final round of destructive paranoid insecurity from within, and emasculating ridicule from without. You see, critical acclaim just does not serve the purpose of a behavioural suture for the likes of us, as we were then. It doesn¹t heal these kinds of personality wounds, or resolve the pressing and omnipresent dilemma ...suicide.

Perhaps it was Jon Savage, or perhaps someone else. But Ian Curtis got hold of my private telephone number and he began to call me. He would call me at odd hours (as the newspapers might say). To talk. To talk about Throbbing Gristle, to talk about my anarchic ideas on popular music; ideas not a little laced with disdain and sarcasm for what I felt were the obvious rock and roll celebrity aspirations of ³punk². He was a great talker on the phone., and smart. He turned out to have been an afficianado of Throbbing Gristle from as early as 1977.

Apart from a mutual drive to subvert and inflame "popular" music, we would also talk about militaria; transgressive acts; nazis; sociopathic tendencies, and needless to say, about depression and isolation.

In 1978 Throbbing Gristle released "D.O.A. - The Third And Final Report Of
Throbbing Gristle" on our own Industrial Records label. "Industrial Music" being a term first coined by Monte Cazazza and myself during a conversation a couple of years earlier. Ian Curtis loved ³D.O.A.². In particular he liked the track "WEEPING". As chance would have it ³Weeping² was my own first official solo track within the confines of Throbbing Gristle. This song plays with several interlacing interpretations and resonances of the word "weeping". It addresses the idea of weeping as tears and crying and the other weeping of raw third degree burns and wounds. This conjunction of physical injuries from burning and emotional wounding from being burned is the morbid centre of the lyric. Morbidity itself is seen as metaphor and reality. The extreme result of betrayal, hopelessness, flesh scalded and blistered leaving no protection, only an absolute vulnerability to infection and unbearable agony.

In fact this song was recorded as an actual suicide note by me. I had already chosen to commit suicide onstage at "The Crypt" gig by Throbbing Gristle, in London. To this end I drank a bottle of whisky laced with sleeping pills and valium. In the crypt of a desanctified church no less. It didn¹t quite work. So on my delerious return home after that disconcert I had swallowed more than 50 valium and mogadon and flushed them all down with mugs of whisky! To this day I consider that the last true Throbbing Gristle gig.

I was disillusioned with everything. I felt no respect for the other members of Throbbing Gristle. I hated the sudden shift into critical acceptance. The dilution of integrity. Even the "cult" acclaim. I was convinced that I had become merely the spectacle. Suiting the voyeuristic purposes of public and band alike by risking sanity, life, physical freedom and emotional disintegration in order to speak more clearly of vulnerability and alienation. I was trying, in my crippled way, to be as mediumistic as intoxication and celebratory indulgence; as pure sonics and streams of improvised consciousness could take me; in the hope for an epiphany. A final moment of vision captured in the headlights of this madness and mayhem. I felt I was the pet freak, a necessary evil to the others. A controlled implosion of notoriety that added a cudos they might never achieve otherwise. I believed they despised me and betrayed me behind my back. That they despised me, and were similtaneously intimidated by my intensity, and that they were phoney in their expression of exploring extremes and taboos, in public at least. Fair or not. True or not. Megalomaniac or not. Paranoid or not. This was how I was feeling. Exploited, unappreciated, and disgusted. Without any redeeming sensations. Which made me assume that this was all my fault. That I was a failure and completely and utterly worthless and devoid of genuine love.

All these thoughts and screams of pain were poured into this tremendously personal song. I recorded it, and the layers of my violin sedated with more alcohol and downers. These days I stil find it hard to listen to. But because of the stupidity. How could I have accidentally found myself caring about anything to do with music or such people so much? How could I have let them hypnotise me into believing I was all of the problem? With hindsight it seems clear that a lot of this might well have been amplified "adolescent" angst. But I had nobody around me to share this with. Except Monte Cazazza in letters, and Ian Curtis over the phone. Ian understood. There seemed to be no separation between us. We even wished we were in each others groups. Or rather, we wished we were somewhere else with a group of our own, a new group.

"Weeping" remained Ian Curtis' favourite song by me. Sometimes he scared even me with his devotion to it. He¹s play it to me over the phone and sing the words along with my vocal. Joy Division released "An Ideal For Living" in June of that same year and he gave me a signed copy. Years later I would sell it so that I could go to see Brion Gysin in Paris.

... During the night of 17th May 1980 an abject Ian phoned me for the last time. He was singing, intoning "Weeping". I was scared for him. I could feel what was in his mind. I had tried to kill myself to a backdrop of "Weeping" too. Lou Lou Picasso who painted the cover of "We Hate You (Little Girls)" for Sordide Sentimental¹s Throbbing Gristle single had also tried to commit suicide listening to "Weeping". It was all too horrible and inevitable. He was distraught, anguished, angry, fristrated, confused and severely depressed. He felt that somehow he¹d let matters slip out of his grasp and control; that nobody around him cared what he wanted, what he needed, and more importantly at that moment, how much he did not want to tour or be in "Joy Division" right now.

He had a sense of invisible, relentless, steamrollering behind the scenes and this was compounded by feeling he had ended up exactly where he didn¹t want to be. Feeling obliged to take part in a truly dreaded American tour. He spoke of a sense of betrayal, of being used, of claustrophobic relationships, of being eaten alive by everyone and destroyed. He was trapped and weakened at the worst possible time.

He believed that somehow his own failings and courage had combined to create this situation where he was seeming to voluntarily compromise his own self-esteem by allowing commercial blackmail and misplaced loyalties to discredit his principles and dishonour his original intentions within "Joy Division". Matters had somehow been shabbily manipulated in such a way that despite his "cries for help" he was scheduled to fly to America on Monday the 19th. He was was alternately bewildered and angry. Sick of it all. Sick of not being heard when it was inconvenient for others. With his own personal contradictions and problems on top I knew that there was not much time.

I phoned someone in Manchester and told them that I thought Ian was really going to try and kill himself and that they should get to him immediately at home or even call the local police or it might be too late. When I was challenged and asked how I knew, I said I just knew. It was a scary but overwhelming certainty that I was feeling. They basically ridiculed me telling me that Ian was always depressed and suicidal and miserable, that that¹s just how he is. I felt helpless. They promised they¹d do something anyway, even though they thought he¹d just been winding me up. A sense of inevitability still overwhelmed me. I cried into the night until the valium kicked in. Weeping..the kind that wracks your body with sobs and screams so deep that they resemble terminal spiritual convulsions.

I am not sure how long after we spoke he actually hung himself in such a very working class Manchester manner. I suspected that nobody would manage to do anything practical. Nobody would make it to go and see him and babysit him through that night. Suicide is often an intense form of temporary insanity. The specific momeant passes, and fire cleanses. Somehow the person I spoke with succeeded in putting me into an almost hypnotic holding pattern, persuading me that everything was going to be fine; it was just a prima-donna tantrum and that I should not interfere directly and call anyone else or the police. That it was not any of my business and that I was just panicking and being dramatic. Just like Ian liked to be. I was assured that if anything really serious was going on the Joy Division inner circle would take care of it in their own way. They were used to this kind of thing.

All this left me very unsure of my orginal intuition and of how much I could appropriately intrude when I really didn¹t know everything about what was going on. I only knew Ian¹s version in late night phone calls. I didn¹t know all the domestic crises, or medical details that were amplifying his moods. So, reluctantly, in my delirium and derangement I didn¹t do anymore. I didn¹t call 999 myself. The last thing I wanted was for Ian to be suddenly invaded by emergency services and perhaps carted off for more medical and even psychiatric evaluations. Perhaps this was just an extreme version of his usual motive for ringing me up. He was just desparate for company and support, to be heard and given respect for his psychological cravings by a person he believed felt the same things just as intensely. I intended to travel up to see him that week if he managed to cancel the American tour.



I.C. WATER

And I see much more clearly everyday
And I sense I can see you play
And there¹s always some truth
And there¹s always something I should say
There¹s always something there to give me water everyday
WATER
Water I hear you say
WATER
Water I plead that you might stay
And every day, in every way
I can see you die
And I could never go away
And I could never tell you a lie
And I can see you scream and I can see you cry
For all the stories and all the hate that always comes to you
Like WATER
Water I hear you say
And I know and I feel
What you say is far too real
And every thing
And everywhere
And everything you say you care for
WATER
I need some water
WATER
I need some water
I am the devil¹s daughter
I am a Lamb to the slaughter
WATER
Water everyday (water pouring down)
WATER
Water I hear you say (water on the ground)
You tell me things and they¹re things I should have known
Where your tears are NOW they¹re not quite your own
And at night you lie in dreams you haven¹t flown
As we spin in circles that look so blown
Just water
Water in the ground
And your tears are tears and fears more like me
And the S.M.I.L.E. that I S.M.I.L.E. is not what I see
WATER
Water everywhere
Water, water I know you care
And the tears stream down from the sky
Each tastes bitter
The salt of asking why?
And your words come down and fall over me
Each one is a friend
Each one is the rain
And each is the sea
Our worlds are so close they¹re inside my heart
Falling, falling, falling
Ripping me apart
Like water
Water everyday,
Water, water I hear you say
Water, water everyday
Water, water I hear you say
WATER
Water on the ground
WATER
What a strange sound
Water
What a strange sound,
Water
What a strange, strange sound

Lyric copyright GENESIS P-ORRIDGE 1989.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Liner notes from the Thee majesty and Cotton Ferox Wordship album

COVER SIGIL" WORD OVMOUTH" BY GENESIS BREYER P-ORRIDGE 2003


inside cover

Thee majesty + Cotton Ferox = wordship

Special delivery: Ventadour castle is the, now ruined, place where the medevial romantic poet, recorded as being the very first TROUBADOR, was writer in residence. His name was Guilhem de Peitieu. One of the poems began "I am sick in a strange way and all I know is hearsay". Our visit was illuminated in many subtle ways by the generosity of Luc De Goustine, who was persuaded to reveal the castle mysteries by Eric And Marc Hurtado of Etants Donnes.This cd is dedicated by my SELF to all these beings and the entities they conjure outside the circles of T.I.M.E.

My deepest respect and gratitude for allowing these voices to speak herein go to my friends and compatriots in magick,Carl Abrahammson and Thomas Tibert; and to Benedikte and Sofia for their tolerance and kindness during thee period when these recordings took place. Also, allow me to mention in these dispatches, my ever-loving otherness Lady Jaye, who encouraged me to give equal prescence to all those who could choose to speak through me by word ov mouth.

GENSIS BREYER P-ORRIDGE,NEW YORK, 2004



BACK COVER

WORDSHIP
(AND ALL E KNOW IS HEARSAY)

AS RECORDED BY
THEE MAJESTY+COTTON FEROX

"Let I.T be known,sweet souls who might crave more knowledge of this remarkable text that, during thee authors travels, and travails, S'HE was led mysteriously by those beatnik brujos Eric and Marc Hurtado ov Etants Donnes to one Ventadour Castle in la belle France. This majestic spot, craggy home of hawks and brooding spirits is now but a ruin where the medevial romantic poet, recorded as being thee very first TROUBADOUR, was a writer in residence. His name was Guilhem de Peitieu. One ov his most wonderous poems began, "I am sick in a strange way and all I know is hearsay". Our visist was illuminated in mnay subtle ways by generosity ove thee learned sage Luc De Goustine, who was persuaded to reveal thee castle's innermost secrets. I.T is this same shattered fortress that doth grace thee cover to form a Templar cross.Be aware that therefore that this song cycle is dedicated by thee author's SELF to all nameless beings and hallowed entities fluttering in shadows and conjured momentarily outside thee circles of T.I.M.E. De-code En-code A-code

Fabian Llyod,Paris 1923