Originally released on vinyl picture disc on December 24, 1984 as A Pagan Day (Pictures from a Notebook), the 1994 Cleopatra label release
Pagan Day finds
Psychic TV in the same sort of live improv setting that leader
Genesis P-Orridge favored in his previous band,
Throbbing Gristle. Indeed, A Pagan Day (Pictures from a Notebook) initially arrived during
Psychic TV's first 1984-1985 burst of live albums, just before their infamous barrage of 23 live albums released on the 23rd of each month between 1985 and 1987, each titled after the city where the performance was located.
Pagan Day is less extreme than some of those albums. Song structure is observed, and
P-Orridge and cohort
Alex Fergusson keep a fairly tight rein on things. The 14 songs include two untitled fragments originally released as a 7" single with early copies of the album, and most of them have a clearly defined musical logic and progression. Fans of
Psychic TV's more out-there work might find this distressingly restrained, but it's a remarkable performance nonetheless.