Peter Christopherson, known across the catalogue as Sleazy, is one of the Bureau's foundational Tier-I entries in this archive's post-1975 industrial cluster. Born 27 February 1955 in Leeds; died 25 November 2010 in Bangkok at age 55; Bureau memorial register. The catalogue centres on three collaborative working positions: founding member of Throbbing Gristle from 1975; co-founder of Psychic TV with Genesis P-Orridge in 1981; co-founder of Coil with John Balance in 1982, sustained as the long-running partnership until Balance's 2004 fall-death. Alongside the music, Christopherson had a major graphic-design and album-cover-art career: partner in the Hipgnosis design agency from the mid-1970s with credits across Pink Floyd, Peter Gabriel, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, AC/DC, Yes, Genesis, ELO, XTC and 150+ album-art projects; took the first promotional photographs of the Sex Pistols; directed the Nine Inch Nails 1993 horror short film Broken. The Bureau files Christopherson at Tier I for the TG / PTV / Coil triple-band position, the Hipgnosis partnership and 150+ album-art credits, the long-running Balance partnership, the Bangkok-period solo work (The Threshold HouseBoys Choir, Soisong), and his influence on Nine Inch Nails and the post-1980 mainstream-industrial cluster.
Christopherson's father Derman Christopherson (1915–2000) was a professor of engineering who became master of Magdalene College, Cambridge; later Peter Christopherson moved to Buffalo, New York to study computer programming, theatre design, and video at the University at Buffalo. The University at Buffalo period developed Christopherson's interest in performance art and in the work of photographers Robert Mapplethorpe and Arthur Tress.
The mid-1970s Hipgnosis partnership opened the catalogue's commercial visual-arts position. Per Christopherson's own later statement: "I worked as a free-lance photographer and contributor, then promoted to an assistant to Hipgnosis before becoming a partner, and continued to act also after I officially left the organization. So my contributions range from attempted but rejected artwork or design work, to partial contribution in either/both as an assistant, to being fully responsible for all design and artwork, such as the Peter Gabriel LPs." The Hipgnosis catalogue extended across Pink Floyd (including the iconic Wish You Were Here and A Nice Pair), Peter Gabriel (multiple sleeves under Christopherson's direct direction), Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, AC/DC, Yes, Genesis, ELO, XTC, 10cc, Bad Company, The Pretty Things, UFO, Factory Records material, plus work for A Certain Ratio and other post-punk cluster figures. Parallel to the Hipgnosis catalogue Christopherson took the first promotional photographs of the Sex Pistols in 1976.
Throbbing Gristle formed in 1975 alongside Genesis P-Orridge, Cosey Fanni Tutti and Chris Carter. Christopherson's TG position included pioneering live-performance sampler use through a modified keyboard-triggered sampler built before the introduction of the first Fairlight to the UK; sole responsibility for visual direction across the TG catalogue including the Heathen Earth (1980) cover photography. The Sleazy nickname per Cosey Fanni Tutti's later BBC Radio 4 obituary account derived from a backstage visit to Cosey after she had been performing topless. After the 1981 TG split Christopherson co-founded Psychic TV with P-Orridge; worked on the first two PTV albums Force the Hand of Chance (1982) and Dreams Less Sweet (1983).
John Balance (born Geoff Rushton 1962, also later Jhonn Balance, d. 2004) met Christopherson as a Throbbing Gristle fan; the two became intimate partners. Balance joined PTV during the Dreams Less Sweet sessions; the two later departed PTV to form Coil in 1982 as the catalogue's long-running collaborative partnership across about 22 years. Coil consisted primarily of Christopherson and Balance, occasionally joined by Steven Stapleton (Nurse with Wound), Steven E. Thrower (bass guitar, drums), Drew McDowall and Thighpaulsandra; Balance was the lead lyricist and primary vocalist (and Chapman Stick player); Christopherson the sonic and visual director. Per Christopherson's 1987 statement on the Coil sound: "a big movie theater ambience" - the sonic working vein the cross-pollination of electronic experimentation with cinematic-orchestral dimension and occult / ritual thematic position. The Coil catalogue closed with Balance's 13 November 2004 fall-death at the Weston-super-Mare home he shared with Christopherson.
After 1985 Christopherson took music-video direction commissions, including Nine Inch Nails' 1993 horror short film Broken; Trent Reznor had cited Coil as a major influence and enlisted Christopherson for the controversial short. Per Reznor's later statement on Christopherson's 2010 death: "I awake to sad news. RIP Peter Christopherson - friend and huge inspiration."
Throbbing Gristle reformed in 2004. Christopherson participated alongside P-Orridge, Tutti and Carter; later the 2007 album Part Two: The Endless Not and a 2007-onwards tour catalogue including the Tate Modern Turbine Hall performances. Following Balance's 2004 death Christopherson relocated permanently to Bangkok, Thailand from 2005 after several years of regular visits; per the catalogue's later biographical record the relocation was a response to the loss of Balance.
The Bangkok period produced two projects. The Threshold HouseBoys Choir (2005–2010) opened with the 2007 début Form Grows Rampant (5 parts, accompanying DVD of Thai ritual footage shot in Krabi); later the catalogue expanded the Coil-era cinematic-and-occult working idiom into specifically Thai ritual material. One tour promoter who organised a Threshold HouseBoys Choir concert described it as "easily the most shocking thing I have ever experienced." In 2008 Christopherson and Russian electronic musician Ivan Pavlov / CoH launched the Soisong project (Tokyo premier 9 March 2008); later European tour included a live soundtrack performance to Derek Jarman's 1993 film Blue in Rovereto, Italy. Self-released the début EP through Greedbag.
The catalogue's final position closed in October-November 2010. After the 23 October 2010 London Village Underground first date of TG's European tour, P-Orridge announced unwillingness to continue performing with the band and returned to New York. Christopherson, Carter and Tutti finished the tour as X-TG. X-TG had announced future plans for new music before the death intervened. Christopherson died peacefully in his sleep at his Bangkok home on 25 November 2010 (some sources 24 November); cause of death never made public. At the time of his death he was working on the Throbbing Gristle Desertshore Installation rework of Nico's 1970 album as the next TG project; later the rework was completed posthumously by Carter Tutti with Steven Stapleton. Genesis P-Orridge wrote a lengthy eulogy concluding "Sleazy became a source of every suture for my heart, loving sustenance for my soul. He nurtured me with words of wise counsel garnered from his own similar and tragic losses... we were blessed by Sleazy's loving nature to be able to accept his gentle embrace and, crying like a child we often are, be able to lovingly say to him, 'I HAVE GOT MY FRIEND BACK.'"