in 1979 as a means of continuing their confrontational, shock-oriented approach to music and their multimedia live performances.
draws much of its inspiration from the literary underground, including situationist philosophy,
. The group also claims to be the mouthpiece for its own quasi-religious group, the Temple Ov Psychick Youth.
has been branded a dangerous deviant in several publications, and police raided his home in 1992, seizing videos, books, and magazines following a television show concerning child abuse in which a
As for the music itself,
Psychic TV's earlier years continued in the experimental vein of
Throbbing Gristle's work, encompassing melodic pop, barely listenable white noise, gentle ballads, industrial found-sound collages, spoken word pieces, and experiments with ethnic instruments and world music, all tied together by a dadaist sensibility.
Force the Hand of Chance, the group's first album, was released in 1982; during the '80s,
Psychic TV's prodigious output totaled over 20 albums. Much of this stemmed from a publicity stunt beginning in 1986 for which the group attempted to release one live album, each from a different nation, on the 23rd of each month for 23 months. Even though the group didn't quite achieve its goal, the 14 albums
Psychic TV released in 18 months were enough to get the group into the Guinness Book of World Records.
Christopherson and
Rushton both left the group rather early on to form
Coil, and
Psychic TV has since become an open-ended collective with contributors such as
Alex Fergusson, formerly of
Alternative TV.
Psychic TV scored a minor U.K. pop hit in 1986 with "Godstar," a tribute to
Rolling Stones guitarist
Brian Jones, and 1988 saw the group's first album release in America with
Allegory and Self.
Beginning in 1988,
P-Orridge became a pioneer on the British club and rave scene. Records from the Chicago house scene by
Frankie Knuckles and
Farley Jackmaster Funk made their way to London, and when
P-Orridge noticed the word "acid" on one of them, he dubbed the British psychedelic variation "acid house" and began recording and experimenting with the style on
Jack the Tab: Acid Tablets, Vol. 1 and Towards Thee Infinite Beat.
P-Orridge has since released albums under the name
Psychic TV as well as using a variety of aliases to produce "compilation" albums actually featuring all his own music. Several
Psychic TV collections, as well as new material, appeared in the '90s; the best of the retrospectives are the two singles compilations
Hex Sex and
Godstar, and the 1999 overview
Best Ov: Time's Up. New
Psychic TV material took a backseat as
P-Orridge's commitment to his spoken word project
Thee Majesty and a new philosophy he dubbed "Pandrogeny" occupied his time. It was the latter that had him going under the knife for breast implants and enforcing the use of the pronoun s/he.
PTV work began again in 2003 with two years of touring leading to studio work. A new album was delayed when
Throbbing Gristle reunited for a short time, but work resumed in 2006. The finished product,
Hell Is Invisible...Heaven Is Here, arrived a year later.
P-Orridge's wife and bandmate,
Lady Jaye Breyer P-Orridge, died of heart failure a few months after its release. A tribute to her,
Mr. Alien Brain vs. the Skinwalkers, was released near the end of 2008, featuring versions of
Syd Barrett's "No Good Trying" and
the Velvet Underground's "Foggy Notion."
–
Steve Huey, Rovi