Look up the word “provocateur” and you ought to find a picture of Genesis P-Orridge. As leader of industrial pioneers Throbbing Gristle and lysergic renaissance men Pyschic TV, he’s been constantly pushing the definitions of art and music, while at the same time exploring the deepest realms of his psyche. He’s embraced the taboo, and has even treated his body as a pliable form able to be redefined in his own vision. If he’s caused others to rethink and question their assumptions, it’s because he himself has been constantly searching the limits of human existence for meaning and understanding, or at the very least, some new kind of kick.

But before Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV, Genesis began this exploration with COUM Transmissions, a collective operating out of the British seaside town of Hull in the late ’60s and early ’70s. While COUM eventually included future Throbbing Gristle members, it was not a band, but a performance art group. Staging their happenings at pubs and public spaces around Hull, they soon gained a reputation as the village freaks and were banned by several establishments. That notoriety spread after Genesis and then-girlfriend Cosey Fanni Tutti moved to London, where they staged the Prostitution exhibit at the Institute of Contemporary Art that earned them the tag of “wreckers of civilization” from the Arts Minister.

It’s no surprise then that Home Aged & The 18 Month Hope (Dais Records) isn’t a typical collection of recordings. The eight tracks here certainly aren’t what you’d consider songs, and at times, seem like the product of someone randomly turning on a tape recorder while they were mucking about the Ho-Ho Funhouse (the abandoned warehouse COUM occupied). There are musical elements, most noticeably “18-Month Hope,” which consists of P-Orridge sawing away at his violin, but otherwise even the recording taken from COUM’s performance opening for Hawkwind, a piece titled“Edna and The Great Surfers,” is largely a jumbo of noise and words.

Suffice to say, Home Aged is most interesting as a historical artifact (as opposed to an entertaining listen). As such its best moments are when Genesis speaks directly, as on the opening interview, or candidly, as on the closing conversation with David Mayor, where he seems to already have launched his plans for Throbbing Gristle—and perhaps even Psychic TV—in his mind. Without the visual element to COUM’s work, this is indeed a bizarre little record. But as Genesis has proven time and time again, there is something to be gleaned from embracing the bizarre too.