Lucifer-
Black Mass

Date: 1971
UNI Records 3111- Released by MCA

Electronic Music composed and realized by MORT GARSON

Electronic Engineering by EUGENE HAMBLIN

Album notes by MICHAEL OWN JONES, Ph.D., UCLA

Listen!

Solomon's Ring  (Streaming RealAudio)

  

Solomon's Ring  MP3 Stereo (Download)

I got this tape from Charles Olivier <FatalCool@webtv.net> -- a tape I've been seeking for years. When I was in high school in the '70's, this album was held with supreme reverence by me and a few close friends. All we knew was that it was the weirdest thing we'd ever heard. The album came out in 1971, around the same time as other synth experimentalists such as Tonto's Expanding Headband and Beaver & Krause. It was the first pure electronic recording we'd ever heard, and playing the album was always a special event for us. We always called it "Black Mass Lucifer" -- one phrase, no breaks, mainly  because it's not clear on the album whether the band's name was Black Mass or Lucifer, it was easier just to merge it all. Sounded cool to say it that way, anyway.

Listened with today's ears, it's a bit dated, but parts of it are obviously way ahead of their time. Played entirely on Moog synthesizer, with occasional drums and some processed voices, the album purports to be made by a band called "Lucifer" and is an electronic concept album that is an interpretation of witchcraft and the dark arts.  I know next to nothing else about the album, although there are some pretty cool liner notes by Michael Owen Jones "on the subject of witchcraft [featuring] his field research in Appalachia and Newfoundland." Appalachia?? Every song is a different eletronic treatment of a different theme, ranging from Eno-esque ambient to cheezy bad-drum-machine Moog music. To my knowledge, this is not available on CD and damn hard to find in any format. Anyway, it's is one cool/weird/groovy album, a real lost gem of electronic composition.