Genesis Breyer P-Orridge born Neil Andrew Megson ; 22 February β 14 March was an English singer-songwriter, musician, poet, performance artist, visual artist, and occultist who rose to notoriety as the founder of the COUM Transmissions artistic collective and lead vocalist of seminal industrial band Throbbing Gristle. Born in Manchester , P-Orridge developed an early interest in art, occultism, and the avant-garde while at Solihull School.
After dropping out of studies at the University of Hull , he moved into a counter-cultural commune in London and adopted Genesis P-Orridge as their pseudonym. COUM's confrontational performance work , dealing with such subjects as sex work , pornography , serial killers , and occultism , represented a concerted attempt to challenge societal norms and attracted the attention of the national press.
COUM's Prostitution show at London's Institute of Contemporary Arts was particularly vilified by tabloids , gaining them the moniker of the "wreckers of civilisation. In , P-Orridge co-founded Psychic TV, an experimental band that from onward came under the increasing influence of acid house.
In , P-Orridge co-founded Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth , an informal occult order influenced by chaos magic and experimental music. P-Orridge was seen as the group's leader, but rejected that position, and left the group in Amid the Satanic ritual abuse hysteria, a Channel 4 documentary accused P-Orridge of sexually abusing children , resulting in a police investigation. P-Orridge was subsequently cleared and Channel 4 retracted their allegation.
There, they married Jacqueline Breyer, later known as Lady Jaye, in , and together they embarked on the Pandrogeny Project, an attempt to unite as a "pandrogyne", or single entity, through the use of surgical body modification to physically resemble one another. P-Orridge continued with this project of body modification after Lady Jaye's death. Although involved in reunions of both Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV in the s, they retired from music to focus on other artistic media in P-Orridge was credited on over releases during their lifetime.
