Archive Review: Psychic TV’s Hex Sex (1994)

By now, all of you certainly know the story – Throbbing Gristle, the artistic progenitors of Psychic TV, created the genre of industrial music back during the seventies punk era. Since their subsequent founding in 1982, Psychic TV has further supported and influenced the industrial style, infusing it with elements of Crowley and the occult, primitive ritual and ancient mythology and an anarchistic spirit. Fifteen years down the road, however, and look where it’s gotten us...the original focus of industrial music has been lost as apocalyptic pop stars grace the Top 40.

Lost among the many musical achievements of PTV is one startling truth, however, that you may not know, or don’t realize: Psychic TV may be a lot of things, but first and foremost, they’re a great pop band. That said, let’s move on to the proof: Hex Sex, the first of two discs collecting the cream of PTV’s prolific output of 7” and 12” singles. Relegated to cult status on this side of the pond, PTV has nonetheless had a healthy ride upon the British charts, and most of those hits can be found here. 

From the band’s energetic reworking of the Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations” to their passionate ode to the late Rolling Stone Brian Jones, “Godstar”; from the brutal exclamation of “Eve of Destruction” to their orgasmic rendering of “Je T’aime” or original, more experimental cuts like “Supermale” or “Magick Defends Itself,” Psychic TV have defined the cutting edge of creativity. 

At their best, Psychic TV will make you rethink what you know and believe about music, society and yourself; at their worst, PTV is still artistically exciting. Hex Sex is a fine documentary of some of the band’s more accessible moments...which is not to say that these cuts won’t draw blood. This is 21st century pop for those unafraid to look into the abyss, and should be treated as such. (Cleopatra Records, released 1994)

Review originally published by R.A.D! zine, March 1994

Psychic TV