Genesis Breyer P-Orridge recording notes on the Nine Inch Nails ‘Howler’ Remix

Breyer P-Orridge ‘Howler’ Remix
Some words about the remix, taken from Genesis Breyer P-Orridge's correspondence with Trent Reznor:   While I'm Still Here (Breyer P-Orridge 'Howler' Remix) appears on the deluxe package of the 2013 Nine Inch Nails albums "Hesitation Marks" 

Lady Jaye, my other half, we married Friday June 13th 1995, was raised from a small child by her grandmother. In 1996, whilst living happily on 10 acres of redwoods with a creek & waterfalls and no neighbours, we heard Mimi, her gran, was severely ill, with colostomy bag, unable to walk and increasingly overwhelming Alzheimers. We agreed to leave California to go to Queens and take care of Mimi 24x7. After a year or so Mimi had to go into full time care as her dementia was so out of touch with “non-sensus reality”.

When we went to work with Sean on your beautiful song he told me his grandmother had just passed away a week ago from Alzheimers and dementia!

This all felt significant, though we don’t know your story and would never ask.

We had recorded Howler monkeys at LA zoo as they woke at dawn in 1996…and kept that tape for some special project. That is what is in the background. The trumpet is a Tibetan Thighbone trumpet, 300+ years old, the thigh of a virgin once owned by Trungpa Kunley of the “crazy Path” of Buddhism. There’s also a Shiva Sadhu’s serpent shaped trumpet. Both said to destroy demons…or in Western speak, release hormones that balance mental issues.

The voice at start and end is Lady Jaye talking about MIND is the being, not the body, just before s/he dropped her body. We wanted it to all be as intimate as you implied it was.

We are proud that the remix WAS included on the deluxe package.

We hope that information helps you see the story we were trying to tell with sound. We always feel music is storytelling, psychic hygiene/healing for our chosen tribe.

THE GENESIS OF GENESIS BREYER P-ORRIDGE.' V magazine article

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Genesis Breyer P-Orridge Guardian Article August 2013

Genesis P-Orridge: 'People's lives should be as interesting as their art'

The Throbbing Gristle founder, once branded a 'wrecker of civilisation', talks about being given a poetry prize by Philip Larkin and reaching marital unity through plastic surgery

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Genesis P-Orridge: 'The press portray me as outrageous, but we have a way with animals.' Photograph: Andy Kropa/Getty Images North America

Hi Genesis! Your new photographic retrospective book about your life contains images of nudity and genital mutilation. (1) Yet some fans might be more shocked by the one of you as a cute little boy clutching a rabbit.

For the first nine years of my life we (2) weren't allowed pets because of my asthma, apart from that rabbit, which lived outdoors in a hutch. But we've had dogs since 1969. The media portray me as outrageous, but we have a way with animals and can train dogs so well that they don't need leads. We once took the dog shopping, went home and two hours later thought: "Where's the fucking dog?" We ran back like a maniac and she was still there, sitting outside the butcher's.

How did cute little Neil Megson become the notorious Genesis P-Orridge?

Solihull School radicalised me in terms of who are the enemy. All the other kids were being told: "You are the future leaders of Britain. You will be MPs or military generals." Then there was me. We started an underground magazine complaining about the school rules and actually got some of them changed, like the one which insisted that boys of 6ft 4in with stubble should always wear their school cap. It was ridiculous!

Were you a bit of a handful, even then?

There's one of my old school reports in the book. The English teacher – nicknamed Bog Brush because of his moustache – put: "Neil seems to live in a completely different universe to the rest of us. Very weird but very intelligent." We'd been quoting Tibetan Buddhism in essays about Shakespeare and stuff. He did recommend Jack Kerouac's On The Road to me, though, which convinced me that people's lives should be as interesting as the art they make. A lifelong manifesto.

Were you really given a prize at Hull University by Philip Larkin?

We went there to study philosophy and economics. God knows why. Within three weeks we thought: "We can't do this." So we started writing poetry. Philip Larkin – the librarian there – gave me the prize, and not long afterwards told the Times I was the most promising young poet in Britain. Which, of course, immediately stopped me writing poetry.

Most people form bands to be famous, make money and have sex. What motivated you to form Throbbing Gristle?

Well, we were already getting plenty of sex! We'd been doing this thing called Coum Transmissions and I remember wearing gas masks outside Hull town hall and this guy in a suit rushing up asking: "Who are you people?" The British Council sent us to Milan with Gilbert and George to represent British performance art, but one day I was talking to this old man in the pub who'd been gassed in the first world war. He'd said: "I understand you're trying to wake people up. But how many people in this pub would get it? Why don't you do something accessible, like music?" So we did.

How did you invent industrial music, which became a genre that has since inspired everyone from David Bowie to Marilyn Manson to Nine Inch Nails?

It was a process of reduction. We decided we didn't want a drummer, because that would immediately anchor us in rock history. At the beginning, we hit my bass strings with a leather glove to provide a rhythm. Chris Carter started building drum machines and weird gadgets.Sleazy Christopherson experimented with tape machines and cut ups because he was into [William] Burroughs. Cosey [Fanni Tutti] wanted to play lead guitar, which at the time was unheard of for a woman. We got one from Woolworths, but she said it was too heavy. So we took an electric saw and cut off the excess wood. That's how she ended up with that style of guitar.

How did you write songs?

We jammed every weekend throughout 1975, recording everything and listening to it back so we could use the best bits. Later, we added my deadpan Lou Reed voice and the various stories. It was about taking lyrics and imagery to the logical conclusion. Nothing was too extreme. Nothing was taboo.

Your first performance – the notorious "Prostitution" show at the ICA in 1976 – catapulted you to national attention.

Yeah. We had a plastic art deco clock filled with used tampons called It's That Time of the Month. The whole country was in uproar. Now those tampons are in the Tate National Collection of Fine Art – with the Turners, the Rothkos and the Constables.'

How did it feel to be branded "wreckers of civilisation" in the House of Commons?

We were so proud. We had a flyer with that on it the very next day. The irony of it was that Sir Nicholas Fairbairn – the [Tory] MP who called us that – was involved in various sex scandals. And his mistress, a House of Commons secretary, tried to hang herself outside his office. It was classic British hypocrisy: everything we were against.

Is it true that TG's 20 Jazz Funk Greats album was returned to the shops by irate jazz funk fans compaining: "This isn't jazz funk. It's horrible noise!"?

There was a lot of dark, twisted humour in TG.

Your Twitter page says you're "STILL!" a member of TG. Does that mean the band still exists?

I never quit the band even though the others said I did. I just didn't do the last two gigs for reasons that will become clear eventually – it was the people around them on the business side. But Sleazy died not long after, so maybe it was the end of our natural life as a band.

TG and your other band Psychic TV both became international cults without entering the mainstream. Would you have liked hits?

Well Godstar (3) got to No 29. But going on Top of the Pops would have ruined everything. It would have made it much more difficult to write books, do art exhibitions and set up religions and be taken seriously. Once you have a hit, it just becomes another old song. Mick Jagger is 70 and still singing Satisfaction every concert. That would drive me insane.

Were you really the last person to speak to Joy Division's Ian Curtis before he killed himself?

Ian Curtis was a young genius. We were the last person he spoke to on the phone. He said: "I don't want to go on the American tour. I'd rather be dead." He sang our song Weeping – about suicide – down the phone. We were ringing people in Manchester, saying: "You've got to go round to Ian's because he's going to try and kill himself." The people we got through to went, "Oh, he's always being dramatic" and the other people were out. Even now it really upsets me.

In 1992, you were hounded from the UK by the tabloids and the police, amid allegations of "Satanic ritual abuse"? What happened?

Sleazy had made this film of young boys: LA skateboarders who meet this guy who puts an implant in their arms so every time they press a button they get an orgasm. After a while it burns out the nerves, so they put it in their cocks. It was all fake, but when I first saw it, I said: "Sleazy. People will think this is real."

So you aren't a Satanist, Gen?

That's so far from what we are. We were actually in Kathmandu using our own money to help Tibetan monks feed beggars and refugees when the papers called us "Satanists". Scotland Yard raided my house and took everything, then told my lawyers that if I'd tell them who made the film, they'd forget all about it. But we wouldn't snitch. We lost everything: two homes, our children gave up their friends. Sleazy never thanked me. That was disappointing.

You moved to America and met Lady Jaye Breyer (4), your second wife, musical collaborator and soulmate. Where did you find her?

In a friend's dungeon. We were in the middle of a not very pleasant divorce, so every so often we'd come to New York for a break and basically go wild. We were fast asleep with all these torture instruments after being awake for three days, woke up and this beautiful tall, slim girl wearing 60s clothing with a Brian Jones haircut walks past, then gets changed into this really sexy leather outfit. I was thinking: "Dear universe, if I can be with this woman for the rest of my life, that's all I want." She came over and we were in love from that moment. We got a windfall from a court case and rather than do what everyone else does and buy a Ferrari and a big house, we realised it meant we could be free to never work, just be in love and create things. Thank goodness, because we spent every minute together for the whole time she was physically on this planet. If we'd have done things the normal way, we'd have just seen each other at dinnertime when we were tired.

Why did you start pandrogyny [having plastic surgery to look the same as each other]?

Well, you know that moment when you meet someone and think: "I want to eat you, be immersed in you?" It began like that, and then we began to see more ramifications in terms of how society is controlled and evolution. Humans have to realise they're not individuals, but individual parts of the same organism, with responsibility to each other.

The photographs of Jaye and of you after her death (5) show a deeply moving, intimate side of you that the public has never seen. Was it difficult sifting through those photos?

My friend Leigha Mason selected them because it was impossible for me. My parents and all the animals in the photos apart from Musty, my Pekinese, are dead. Lady Jaye has dropped her body. We believe in reincarnation, but that was really hard.

Footnotes

(1) The book Genesis Breyer P-Orridge is published by First Third Books in deluxe and standard editions.

(2) Genesis usually refers to h/erself in the second person as "we".

(3) 1985 Psychic TV single, a tribute to dead Rolling Stone Brian Jones.

(4)Former nurse Jacqueline Breyer, also known as Miss Domination. After marriage Genesis adopted the name Genesis Breyer P-Orridge.

(5) In 2007, from a heart attack related to stomach cancer.

Coum Transmissions LP arriving from Dais records this October and THE BRITISH GOVERMENT Coum pieces -1975- inducted into the Tate Britain

The cover for the forthcoming COUM Transmissions "Aged Home & The 18 Month Hope" LP. Out on Dais Records this October.

ALSO...

COUM Transmissions' "THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT" (1975) has officially been inducted into the permanent collection of the TATE BRITAIN!

INVISIBLE-EXPORTS is proud to announce the inclusion of COUM Transmissions' "THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT" (1975) into the collection of the TATE BRITAIN.

Carl Abrahamsson and Thomas Tibert revitalize HIGHBROW LOWLIFE...Collab with Genesis release Aug 15th

Reposted from Carl Abrahamsson's blog...


Highbrow Lowlife

Thomas Tibert, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, Carl Abrahamsson. Photo by Ryan Martin.

Inspired and fueled by White Stains' successful concert together with Genesis Breyer P-Orridge in Gothenburg in late June, me and Thomas Tibert have decided to revitalize the dormant label Highbrow Lowlife. It was never really sent to the final rest, but after the limited CD release by Sinnelag, Själabränning (2011), it was definitely time to take a break.

But... We have so much material in the archives and now also a much better distribution network for digital releases, so there's really nothing there to stop Highbrow Lowlife from becoming a very smooth vehicle for our musical expressions – new as well as old ones.

There will be physical/tangible releases too, mainly vinyl, but that takes slightly longer to strategize. So we'll begin slowly but surely by making as much material as possible available digitally.

The first release will be an EP called I Travel. Genesis Breyer P-Orridge reads a trippy poem to music that was originally made for our joint album Wordship (2004), but the EP also contains two remixes. The release date is August 15th, so stay alert!

We have just now fixed our own YouTube channel, where we'll post old as well as new films by Cotton Ferox, White Stains and other relevant acts/people. The first video posted is I Travel F-Side. Enjoy! To see it in a slightly better quality, please go straight to the clip.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=HWzb2sSXoVI

A Highbrow Lowlife website is also being structured and will hopingly see the light of day late August.

Thanks for being interested. Stay tuned and you'll be provided with a lot of mind bending music!

From Genesis: Pre-order your limited edition deluxe copy of our new biographical photo book

Order at http://www.firstthirdbooks.com/books/genesis-breyer-p-orridge/

BORN NEIL ANDREW MEGSON IN 1950, REBORN
AS ARTIST GENESIS P-ORRIDGE IN 1971, REBORN ONCE AGAIN AS A GENDER-ERASING PANDROGYNE WITH H/ER OTHER HALF LADY JAYE SINCE 1993 – GENESIS BREYER P-ORRIDGE HAS NEVER LET ART, LIFE OR EVOLUTION STAND IN THE WAY OF IMAGINATION. WORKING WITH FIRST THIRD BOOKS, ARTIST LEIGHA MASON AND MUSIC JOURNALIST MARK PAYTRESS, GENESIS HAS DRAWN TOGETHER A CONTROVERSIAL LIFETIME OF MEMORIES
IN A SPECIAL PACKAGE AVAILABLE TO ONLY
333 CUSTOMERS WORLD-WIDE.

THIS DELUXE EDITION, ON PRESALE FROM 13 JULY, INCLUDES:

• a 323 page book, printed in Italy, in 6 colours (including silver Pantone) on 170gm Gardamat paper in 20cm x 27cm hardback, with a white linen spine, a mat varnished embossed cover and offering
  • more than 350 selected images from h/er very personal archives and portraits from renowned international photographers
  • an introduction by Mark Paytress exploring the motivations that drive Genesis to surrender h/er physical body to art
  • personal commentary by Genesis on photographs throughout the book.
  • The book will be numbered and signed by Genesis, and the first 100 buyers may request a personalised message (no longer than 100 characters).
• a 96 page catalogue of h/er artworks and h/er collaborations with Lady Jaye, many appearing in a current retrospective at the Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, USA.
• three 7 inch singles, pressed on colored (white, orange and silver) vinyl with original picture labels and presented in specially-designed record sleeves. Four tracks have been created specifically for this project, and the third single is comprised of conversations recorded by Mark, with both Genesis and fellow pandrogyne Lady Jaye.
• a 51cm square poster of intimate and explicit Polaroids revealing Genesis and Lady Jaye’s exploration of their bodies in their spiritual quest. Suitable for framing, but not for the easily-shocked.
• The deluxe edition is housed in a linen bound Japanese-inspired presentation box with a cut-out PTV logo and weighs over 2.5 kilos.

GENESIS HAS SELECTED H/ER UNSEEN AND PERSONAL PHOTOGRAPHS TO ILLUSTRATE H/ER JOURNEY OF LIFE AS CONTINUOUS CREATIVITY. H/ER TIME WITH LEGENDARY BANDS THROBBING GRISTLE AND PSYCHIC TV ARE INCLUDED, AS ARE MANY OF THE MYRIAD BAND MEMBERS OVER THE DECADES LIKE SLEAZY, JOHN BALANCE, DAVID TIBET, AND ALEX FERGUSSON. FANS LOOKING FOR CATEGORICAL PHOTO HISTORIES OF THE COMPLETE BAND LINEUPS SHOULD SEEK SOLACE ELSEWHERE, BUT APPRECIATORS OF GENESIS’S PHYSICAL AND PSYCHIC EVOLUTION WILL BE ENTHRALLED BY THIS SPECIAL TESTAMENT TO A LIFE SPENT EXPLORING THE OUTER LIMITS OF CREATIVE EXPRESSION. THE DELUXE EDITION WILL BE READY FOR SHIPPING FROM 23 SEPTEMBER 2013. VIVA LA EVOLUTION!

THE STANDARD EDITION, CONSISTING OF THE 323 PAGE BOOK AND LIMITED TO 990 COPIES, WILL BE AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER FROM 13 AUGUST 2013.

 I accept the sales conditions£233.00 + P&P

Deluxe editions for all titles are available exclusively through this website.
Read more...

Genesis and White Stains perform in Nefertiti in Gothenburg on the 29th

Entry from Carl Abrahamsson's blog at  http://carlabrahamsson.blogspot.se

With "At Stockholm" being one of my favorite Genesis projects ever ,this is quite exciting news!



Psychick gig bliss up a head!

Genesis P-Orridge, Gothenburg 1989. © Carl Abrahamsson

It's never too late or too soon to look back and enjoy the past. Especially when it deals with future, as it does now. On June 29th, White Stains will resurface after a 20 year hiatus/hibernation. This in order to celebrate two specific projects: White Stains' 1990 album At Stockholm and Cotton Ferox' album Wordship (2004). Is there a common denominator? Of course. We made these albums together with Genesis Breyer P-Orridge – a living legend if there ever was one.

As we enter the stage at Nefertiti in Gothenburg on the 29th, Genesis will be with us. Not to make specific renditions or versions from our two albums, but rather to encourage and celebrate the atmosphere they contain. Very likely, we will surf on this wave of recurrence/resurgence to make a third album too. It would be stupid not to.

Late 1989, I organised a small spoken word tour for Genesis in Scandinavia. We had also already planned to record some of Gen's readings in a studio setting. As White Stains had just integrated sonic wizard Thomas Tibert, who had his own studio, everything moved on pleasant automatic. Gen read his poems perfectly – most of them were recorded on first takes – and when we later made the music for the poems it was like hand in glove on all levels. With textual material like that and a reading that smooth and professional, it's very hard not to make history.

Other adventures then intervened, as they usually do. But in 2002, it felt like it was high time again. As Genesis was coming over to do a lecture on his work at experimental music centre Fylkingen in Stockholm, Tibert and I prepared new music (then as Cotton Ferox) and it was bliss all over again. The result was released in 2004 in the form ofWordship. Some of these vocal recordings had also been used on Cotton Ferox' debut album First Time Hurts in 2002.

Someone as versatile as Genesis must surely have a hard time with projections from others. Is Genesis an (oc)cultural engineer, an industrial music pioneer, a collage artist, a philosopher, a magician etc? Well, of course, all of these and then some. But there is one all-permeating quintessence that is unmistakeable. Genesis is a poet. This is what fascinated me in the beginning of our friendship, and it still does. That's why it'll be an honour to share the stage with Gen and celebrate his/her poetry and the bizarre music that Tibert and I have concocted over the years. They go well together.

The performance will be neither "industrial" nor "electronica" nor "spoken word" but rather all of it in a colourful and quaquaversal mix created to make emotional jump cuts and possible existential mutations. It will be a grand old time spanning from ancient history to the distant future. I hope you'll be there together with us at Nefertiti in Gothenburg on June 29th, 2013, on this exciting adventure.

MORE INFO AND TICKET SALES HERE. BE SMART AND GET YOUR TICKET NOW.

PS. You can buy all of the above albums at the iTunes Music Store. By buying the albums instead of illegally downloading them, you help us in the process of making and releasing new music. Thank you.

I should also mention that the concert is the public final event of a four day conference/symposium at the University of Gothenburg dealing with esotericism, occultism, alternative health movements and many other interesting things. Please consider taking part in this too!

THE ESSWE CONFERENCE

"In the beginning there were White Stains." (Genesis 23:1)

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