When Throbbing Gristle’s mission was terminated in 1981, the band split into Chris & Cosey and Psychic TV, which, for a while, included both Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson and Genesis P-Orridge. Other members of the group’s initial incarnation were Paula P-Orridge, Alex Fergusson (formerly of Alternative TV), John “Zos Kia” Gosling and Geff Rushton, a.k.a. John Balance. At this time, the group’s sound was a unique mix of exotic instruments, Velvet Undergroundy guitar drone, TG and elements we think of as defining the music of Coil, which, of course, Christopherson and Balance soon went on to form.

I got to see this group (and after the Coil founders left) several times in the early 80s and these shows were among the most mesmerizing, insane and just plain hair-raisingly scary concerts I’ve ever attended. I vividly remember seeing Psychic TV at the Hammersmith Town Hall in 1984 and deciding to step back from the front of the stage in case a demon materialized. I didn’t want to be too close to that action!

This show, taped at the Berlin Atonal Festival in 1982, captures that same intimidating sense of menace and dark energy.
 

 
Derek Jarman’s The Angelic Conversation plays Super 8 imagery against a selection of Shakespeare’s sonnets, in its “exploration of love and desire between two men”.  Jarman descibed the film as:

“a dream world, a world of magic and ritual, yet there are images there of the burning cars and radar systems, which remind you there is a price to be paid in order to gain this dream in the face of a world of violence.”

The sonnets are read by Judi Dench, and the soundtrack is by Coil.
 

 
Bonus footage of Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson, along with David Tibet, Othon Mataragas and Ernesto Tomasini, performing soundtrack to ‘The Angelic Conversation’ from 2008, after the jump…
 
With thanks to Muriel Couteau
 

 
Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson’s passing yesterday evoked many tributes to the man as a member of influential electronic acts Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV and Coil. But we haven’t heard quite enough about one of his best solo projects, Threshold HouseBoys Choir.

Both live and on the guise’s single proper release, Form Grows Rampant, THBC basically comprised Sleazy backing his own video of various rituals at the Vegetarian Festival in southern Thailand’s Krabi Town (12 hours from his adopted home of Bangkok) with an abstract soundtrack that drew on the many field recordings he made in the city. Christopherson’s infamous fascination with the young active male body is clear in this work. But many of the problematics surrounding the European gaze that typifies exotica seem mitigated somehow by the late composer’s intimate audio-visual treatment. 

Overall, Christopherson’s work helped create a literary, psychotropic aesthetic that synthesized aspects of outside sexuality, technology, and ritual magick, bound by a wry sense of humor. THBC brought that angle to a highly personal level, and will stand as an evocative late moment in the man’s prolific career.
 

 
More from Form Grows Rampant after the jump…

 
Little Annie AKA Annie Anxiety Bandez, has collaborated with a who’s who of avant garde musicians: Coil, Marc Almond Adrian Sherwood, Kid Congo Powers, Crass, Rubella Ballet and Nurse With Wound.

Her 2006 album, Songs from the Coalmine Canary was co-produced by Antony Hegarty. “Strangelove,” a song from the album co-written with Hegarty, was used as the soundtrack for a Levi’s campaign in 2007, going on to win a Cannes Bronze Lion award for “Best Use of Music.”

Tomorrow night, Little Annie and the fab Baby Dee are the opening acts for Marc Almond at the Philharmonic Hall in Liverpool and for several more UK gigs after that. What a great triple bill.

When I was 18-years-old, I saw her performing at a Crass gig at the Islington Bingo Hall. She stuck her hand down my friend’s pants!

Genderful, her latest album, with Paul Wallfischl is just out on Southern Records. The following statement was put on YouTube along with the video for “Billy Martin Requiem”:

December 1 marks the 22nd annual World AIDS Day, and while there is still no “cure” for or viable vaccine against HIV, the positive strides made battling the virus over the last few years are undeniable. New drugs are making what was a death sentence now a manageable - if serious and chronic - condition. Generic versions of these medications, along with ambitious public health policies are helping make real inroads against the disease in the developing world. There is space for much optimism this year. But what’s lost sometimes with the good news is a space to contemplate what has been lost to us - irrevocably. The talent unrealized, the creativity and vitality extinguished, the knowledge and experience that won’t be passed on to new generations - this was and continues to be the fall out from the AIDS epidemic.

At first I wondered why in the world Little Annie was singing about Billy Martin of all people, but DO keep watching, it’ll make sense. This is a really catchy song, too.

 
Thank you Tim Harris!

The King of Woolworths is the musical alterego of Mancunian Jon Brooks, who makes reprocessed tributes to 1960s BBC soundtracks. This is good shit. Here’s a BBC interview with him:

The King Of Woolworths is Jon Brooks, a man inspired by the soundtracks of 60s and 70s film and television like Get Carter, The Sweeney and the music of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. “It was always my dream to work for them,” he says. “Just that kind of experimentation. I like that attitude where anything went. You could use guitar or trumpet but the way you treated it was something else, and they created some really amazing sounds.”

L’Illustration Musicale is his second album, the follow up to 2001’s sampledelic soundtrack Ming Star. “Ming Star was me and a load of samples, whereas there are no samples on this album, it’s just a load of loops and stuff.” The new LP also features Jon’s first work with vocalists, including tracks with Dot Allison who has previously added vocal flushes to Death In Vegas and Emma Pollack from indie rockers The Delgados. She features on Nuada, 60s sugary pop soul inspired by the film The Wicker Man. “It was a very different thing to do for Emma, but I kind of had an idea it might work.”

Throughout the album, the Roy Budd-influenced instrumentals are cut up with Scott Walker-tinged pop. “I love pop music as well, especially 60s and 70s pop, and I wanted to get an essence of that,” he says. “I didn’t want to do the same thing again. I didn’t want the album to sound like the last one.”

(The King of Woolworths)

(Kings of Woolworths: Ming Star)

(You may recognize the song below as the source for Coil’s “Wraiths and Strays.”)

OK, this is just utterly wrong. Utterly wrong, yet… somehow… strangely… compelling... It’s a 12 minute?

I hacked this video together a while back by using a classic Disney cartoon remixed with a new backing track, “Princess Margaret’s Man in the Djamalfna” by Coil from the album “The New Backwards.” This kind of perfectly encapsulates one of my mini world-views. As Brion Gysin said… we’re all just Here to Go!