Ex-Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV's Genesis Breyer P-Orridge gets the Deluxe Photobook treatment from the excellent First Third Books.

This September, FIRST THIRD BOOKS will release an ambitious new project on the life of Genesis Breyer P-Orridge - music pioneer, artist and body evolutionist. Independently produced in limited numbers, this is a superb quality book devoted to the controversial life and work of one of the most extraordinary artists of modern time. Born Neil Megson, reborn as artist Genesis P-Orridge, reborn once again as a gender-erasing pandrogyne - Genesis Breyer P-Orridge has never let art, life or evolution stand in the way of imagination. As a Fluxus and Dada-inspired performance artist with COUM Transmissions, the post-hippie Breyer P-Orridge determined to revolutionise everyday life. By the late ’70s, Breyer P-Orridge was fronting Throbbing Gristle, a defiantly anti-rock experiment so successful that it launched the entirely new genre of Industrial Music. TG also pioneered a self-determining model for independent music- making that still flourishes today. 

 
Breyer P-Orridge’s next project, the music and arts collective Psychic TV, explored a deep interest in fetishism, magick and ritual, with an emphasis on body art. A prime mover in the 80’s Modern Primitives subculture, from which the latter-day mass trend for tattooing and piercing emerged, Breyer P-Orridge has since taken body politics several stages further with pandrogeny, a ‘third gender’ project launched in the late 90’s with wife and life-partner Lady Jaye. This, book is a testament to a life spent exploring the outer limits of creative expression - often landing the artist in deep controversy. Working with artist Leigha Mason, Genesis has mined h/er personal archives for many of the 350+ photographs included, and has added insightful personal commentary throughout. A detailed forward in the form of a Q&A with rock journalist Mark Paytress explores the cultural importance of the work of this self-styled ‘cultural engineer’. 

The deluxe edition, housed in a special PTV-inspired box, includes a poster of “intimate” Gen and Jaye Polaroids, a 96-page art catalogue and 3 original 7” singles specially recorded by Genesis and friends for this project. Limited to 1323 numbered books, including 333 deluxe versions only available through the First Third Books website. Pre-orders for the deluxe edition are being accepted now and a preview of the deluxe package is available at www.firstthirdbooks.com.

First Third Books is an independent publishing company specialising in high quality music photobooks. GENESIS BREYER P-ORRIDGE is the 3rd in a series of limited edition titles, and you can check out our previous Blog features on their excellent FELT and Sheila Rock's PUNK+ books.

Thanks to Ritchie Franklin. Photo copyright Laure Leber 2013.