Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, the controversial experimental musician and artist and founding member of cult bands Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV, died Saturday of leukemia at 70.
Dais Records co-founder Ryan Martin shared a statement about their parent from the musician’s daughters. P-Orridge was diagnosed with leukemia in 2017.
Born in Victoria Park, Manchster, England, the performance artist and musician identified as third gender. Orridge was a provocateur whose art revolving around witchcraft and pornography caused considerable uproar in the United Kingdom.
S/he formed Throbbing Gristle in the mid-1970s with Chris Carter, Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson and Cosey Fanni Tutti, releasing seminal industrial album “The Second Annual Report” in 1977. Throbbing Gristle released nine albums and broke up in 1981, re-uniting nearly 20 years later.
P-Orridge went on to form Psychic TV, which made songs such as the 1985 “Godstar,” about Rolling Stones founder Brian Jones, that approached conventional alternative pop, along with over 100 experimental, acid house and noise albums.
In a body art project which would consume the rest of his life, P-Orridge and h/er wife Lady Jaye each undertook body modification surgery in 1993 in an attempt to resemble one another and merge into a single being. Lady Jaye died of stomach cancer in 2007.
They were the subject of a 2011 documentary, “The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye,” that screened at the Berlin Film Festival.