Temple Records
Temple Records was a music label originally founded in England by Genesis P-Orridge , which mainly released industrial and techno records and which is now a sub-label of Voiceprint Records .
Temple Records (TOPY)
Label history
Temple Records was founded in 1984 in London by Genesis P-Orridge , who took the production and distribution of the releases of his band Psychic TV into his own hands after his previous contract partners WEA and CBS tried to influence the musical design of his productions . The management of the label was in the hands of the musician's wife, Paula P-Orridge.
The name "Temple Records" refers to the Temple ov Psychic Youth (TOPY), which the musician launched as a provocative propaganda instrument around the same time. The releases are therefore numbered with the abbreviation TOPY. The label name also flirted with the People's Temple sect of Jim Jones , whose mass suicide has been documented in one of the publications. The psychic TV title White Nights also got its name from the sect's so-called suicide exercises.
The first release took place in 1984: the maxi single "Unclean / Mirrors" by Psychic TV (TOPY 001). In general, the vast majority of label releases consisted of albums and maxisins from Psychic TV that appeared in quick succession. In 1985 there were also publications of the same genre by John Gosling (as "Zoskia") and Ram Ram Kino . An LP was also released by Fred Giannelli (as "Turning Shrines"), who will later become a musician on Psychic TV but should have had other solo releases on Temple Rec. Although they have so far only been in the field of industrial , Temple Rec. Still amazed in 1985 with the release of a maxi single by the folk band Tiny Lights , of which an album followed later. In 1987, the duo Nigel Bourne & Seldiy Bates, the former drummer of Siouxsie and the Banshees , Kenny Morris , and the Spanish action artist Jordi Valls (aka. Vagina Dentata Organ) joined the label family. By the beginning of 1991 almost 60 publications had appeared, many of them in limited editions or as picture discs. For a series of live albums by Psychic TV, the idea was to deliver the first nine albums of this series each with a sheet called a "voucher" so that the tenth LP of the series (TOPY 032), which was again implemented as a picturedisk, was only available to senders from to make the collected supplementary sheets accessible. The first 40 releases are mainly assigned to the industrial genre, from 1988 - in keeping with the spirit of the times - techno releases were also added , starting with TOPY 037 .
In 1991 the P-Orridge family had to leave England for legal reasons and therefore lost control of the label name. Plastic Head Distribution , active in the independent and techno sector , then took over the label and in 1993 and 1994 released three other releases from Psychic TV and around ten maxis and albums by relatively unknown independent musicians such as Eden 224 , Vallenato or Fistfuck Deluxe . As before, often in colored vinyl. Many of these late releases were initiated by House producer Anthony Higgins , who himself made three more releases on Temple Rec under the names "Godzilla" and "Starsky & Hutch". The last release is TOPY 081, a green vinyl pressed maxi single in 1994 with the title "Da Riddla" by a project or artist named Nathan .
Number of copies
The number of copies of the publications varied widely. Live albums from Psychic TV were mostly published in a circulation of 5,000 copies (e.g. " Live in Reykjavik "), sometimes less ("Live in Heaven": 3000 St., "Temporary Temple": 2300 St.) . Picturedisks often only achieved small print runs ("Pagan Day": 999 items, "Psychedelic Violence": 1000 items), but were sometimes only the first editions of subsequent higher pressings in normal black vinyl. Studio albums such as "Towards the Infinte Beat" (TOPY 049), which were expected to be more commercially successful than the often poorly recorded live albums, were published in tens of thousands.
The Swedish musician Carl Abrahamsson , who had worked several times with Genesis P-Orridge , ran a Scandinavian branch of the label, Temple Records Scandinavia, between 1988 and 1990. Under this label he released four singles and four albums, including a live LP from Psychic TV and the two compilations "Swedish Exotica". These releases were given the abbreviation TOPYSCAN (Temple ov Psychic Youth Scandinavia).
Voiceprint Temple (TEMPVP)
Since 2003 Temple Rec. Has been a sub-label of the English label Voiceprint Records , which has since released reissues of old Psychic TV records as well as new releases by this band under this label name. The label abbreviation is now TEMPVP.