POP Monteal 2016 review – Psychic TV Makes Magic in Montreal

Psychic TV
Fairmount Theatre
September 23, 2016

POP Montreal brought Genesis Breyer P-Orridge to town this year for both a talk (at Never Apart) and a rare Montreal show with Psychic TV. P-Orridge is an avant-garde artist par excellence: a filmmaker, a founder of industrial music with the band Throbbing Gristle back in the 70s, a performance artist and one half of the Pandrogeny Project (along with late wife Lady Jaye), and front person for the mutating entity that has been – on and off since the early 80s – Psychic TV.

Genesis had actually announced a retirement from touring in 2009, but drummer Edley O’Dowd (of Toilet Böys) almost single-handedly managed to put together a new incarnation of Psychic TV and convinced Gen, a longtime friend, to come back onstage. O’Dowd also designed new uniforms for the band; at Fairmount they were all wearing white jean jackets with colourful patches on the back bearing the Psychic TV logo. Likewise, the backdrop for the show was constituted by two screens, which flashed dancing versions of the band’s logo, wonderfully hallucinogenic visuals, and new pictures and cut-ups from their travels. Last time I saw Psychic TV, Genesis had just had a full set of gold teeth put in; this time the 66-year-old wore sparkly gold sneakers to match the teeth, and appeared onstage at the Fairmount with headlights.

Psychic TV is currently on tour to promote the release – on September 16 – of their latest album Alienist, following 2014’s Snakes. Released by Angry Love and Dais, Alienist is only four tracks long and includes covers of Harry Nilsson’s “Jump into the Fire” and Creation’s “How Does It Feel to Feel.” At the POP Montreal show on Friday, the band played all four songs from Alienist; “Looking for You,” about Lucifer, is a hypnotic dirge with memorable lines like “Oh Lucifer, your rebellion serves no purpose” and “I teach you.” Genesis, who once founded a religion (Thee Temple ov Psychic Youth), also had a creative relationship with Church of Satan’s Anton LaVey, who appeared on the acid house Psychic TV song “Joy” reciting the Lord’s Prayer backward. Psychic TV opened Friday’s concert with “Jump into the Fire” from Alienist, which starts out like scary church (think ringing bells and horror samples) then moves into a funky bass beat with Gen exhorting us to “make each other happy, very very happy.” Genesis also had fun with the crowd by convincing everyone to “give up their cool” by smiling at the person to their right, then hugging the person to their left.

Blessedly the show was quite long, and covered a good selection of what has been a highly heterogeneous oeuvre. Between songs they played all sorts of samples, usually sexual, often screaming. The title track off the new album represents the danceable, electronic aspect of Psychic TV’s music, while earlier songs like “Stolen Kisses” showed off an almost psychedelic 60s pop side. Both “Stolen Kisses” and “Just Drifting,” which Genesis noted was Psychic TV’s first song, come from the band’s debut studio album, 1982’s Force the Hand of Chance. Angry Love also reissued that album last month.

Genesis, who was once branded a “wrecker of civilization” by the UK House of Commons and was also for a time exiled from England, nevertheless has high visions for the future of humanity. The song “Greyhounds of the Future,” which Psychic TV played at the show, opines that “nothing matters but the end of matter,” and at the Never Apart talk Genesis announced: “we are at a point in human history where we really can have whatever we want … we’re getting closer and closer to designing the bodies we want … it’s inevitable, as a species – we have to either evolve or regress … and that’s what we’re seeing right now in the United States: the last gasp of the old guard.” Genesis, who really has always been out of this world, also reassured us that “when we move into space there will be all sorts of other options.” In the meantime, there’s the life of art. According to Genesis “there’s two kinds of art – there’s art that makes things happen, and that’s magic, and there’s art that’s deceptual, and it looks good.” Fair enough, but in Montreal last week Genesis Breyer P-Orridge and Psychic TV managed to make magic and look good doing it.