Those Who Do Not

As part of Throbbing Gristle, P-Orridge invented industrial music and, by circuitous route, is the great grand parent of all yer neofolk, martial folk, dark ambient, power electronics, blah di blah, most of which yours truly finds as dull as ditchwater, and significantly less creative than protozoa found within.

So perhaps it’s best to view Those Who Do Not as a sonic window into the past, a past in which a group of non-musician artists are pushing at the boundaries of what constitutes music. In which the performance is as essential as the music it produces, and both come together to create a ritualistic experience for performers and audience combined. And maybe this glimpse of Psychic TV can be a Rosetta Stone allowing us to make sense of the myriad offshoots spawned and inspired by P-Orridge and their collaborators (the number of which is pretty high, if not quite Mark E Smith-esque!).

To go track by track through an album like Those Who Do Not would be pointless and dull in the extreme. It also isn’t really the point of a recording like this. It stands as a snapshot, a testament to who and what the band was at the time it was recorded, what they did or didn’t achieve and what they created. So, while Those Who Do Not may or may not be a good entry point into the Psychic TV portfolio, repeated listening proved it to be a fascinating and intriguingly hypnotic experience, entertaining, unsettling, and just plain befuddling in parts.