At first glance, Psychic TV bandleader Genesis P-Orridge would seem a most unlikely champion of nostalgia. As co-founder of trailblazing ’70s noise act Throbbing Gristle, P-Orridge became the unwitting progenitor of industrial music—just one of several milestones in a multi-faceted career defined by a rabid dedication to non-conformity. And even when P-Orridge switched from Throbbing Gristle’s collagist technique to song-based structures with the formation of Psychic TV in 1981, the subversive streak remained intact.
But as this latest installment in a series of covers-themed releases proves, P-Orridge has long harbored a romance for musical tradition. You can go all the way back to Psychic TV’s first album Force the Hand of Chance to hear hints of P-Orridge’s childhood affinity for early, pre-rock forms of pop. That album, in fact, begins with P-Orridge singing, “You caress me with simple love,” over an orchestral string arrangement. Looking back, it appears as if P-Orridge was being totally sincere, but in the wake of Sid Vicious’ “My Way” and with the corpse of Throbbing Gristle still warm, the song must have come across as ironic at the time.
On Alienist, P-Orridge and the current incarnation of the band come to celebrate the past. Given P-Orridge’s history of provocation, Psychic TV aren’t interested in preserving anyone’s comfortable idea of the status quo. Nevertheless, the band’s renditions of singer-songwriter Harry Nilsson’s "Jump Into the Fire" and ’60s psychedelic outfit the Creation’s “How Does It Feel to Feel” stay faithful to the sonic character of the original versions. Still, the very act of picking those two tunes expands rather than fortifies the definition of pop music. It also says a lot about the band’s unwillingness to pander to the obvious—even as they play with nothing to prove.
If Psychic TV sound like a bar band on these covers, it’s a bar band that puts a lot of thought into its choice of songs. Since 2009, Psychic TV have recorded covers of Funkadelic’s “Maggot Brain,” Hawkwind’s “Silver Machine,” Can’s "Mother Sky," and Captain Beefheart’s “Dropout Boogie,” releasing the covers as 12-inches once a year with new original tunes as B-sides. Alienist presents two covers and two originals that together clock-in at 34 minutes—long enough to qualify as a full-length but slanted closer to the mixed-bag personality an EP.
P-Orridge and drummer/producer/band director Edward O’Dowd (formerly of the Toilet Boys) don’t make very many radical alterations. The archetypal ’70s-guitar churn of “Jump Into the Fire,” for example, is panned to the right side of the stereo field, just like in Nilsson’s original. But keyboardist John Weingarten’s left-panned piano rolls burst with color and vibrancy where Nilsson’s merely served as an accompaniment. On both covers, in fact, the band oozes with an unguarded joy that’s downright life-affirming.
Meanwhile, the two original songs provide contrast. “I’m Looking for You,” a space-rock dirge, hovers in the same darkly reflective mood for almost 12 minutes, with P-Orridge sounding sinister, weary, and wise all at once. And on the title track, Psychic TV give us an organic version of electronic music as P-Orridge—a somewhat warbly but nevertheless convincing singer—muses about alienation in a robotic monotone over an upbeat dance rhythm played on live drums.
The term “rock and roll” all too often functions as a mantra for reinforcing boundaries, shorthand for “Weren’t things better back in simpler times?” The suggestion that the past was somehow better, more innocent and purer lends itself, consciously or not, to conservative social ideals. That Psychic TV can reach to the past without appealing to such regressive attitudes is just one of the qualities that give Alienist its charm. That they still sound vital and wide-eyed doing it makes it a triumph.
