Occult Rock Library

2010-04-15T20:21:00.000-07:00

Mort Garson's Lucifer - Black Mass (1971)

The concept of this album showed the Moog delivering sounds sinister and exciting to a degree the lurid horror films of the day never matched. All the titles related to occult phenomenons and themes, and seemed to focus mainly on the darker side of occultism. With it's breakbeats galore, intense synthesizer, hip original themes, this was really a unifying concept. An occult Moog-album! The man behind this recording was a somewhat obscure solo artist; Mort Garson.

Mort Grason was born in Canada in 1924, as a graduate from the Juilliard School, he began writing musical scores in the 1940s, and worked as an arranger / composer / engineer in the late 1940s / early 1950s. He got highly acclaimed as the orchestral arranger for Glen Campbell's 1968 "By The Time I Get To Phoenix". Garson also had production credits on records by vocalists and other artists, including Mel Torme, Doris Day, Ed Ames, and Leslie Uggams. He wrote, arranged, and directed for many years on many labels in many styles. He also made music for TV and movies. But he recorded some albums too, each more strange than the other.

According to a Robert Moog (inventor of the Moog) interview, he told that when he was showcasing his instrument at an expo, Garson (even then in his mid-40's) and an assortment of crazed geniuses decided to use it, among other electronic instruments to make a psychedelic pop / rock / spoken word concept album which turned out to be the first usage of the Moog on a commercial pop record from the West Coast. This was the album Zodiac Cosmic Sounds, recorded together with Jacques Wilson in 1967. It consisted of twelve "songs" composed as a suite on the twelve signs of the zodiac and where accompanied by Paul Beaver on electronic keyboards, including the Moog synthesizer. That same year Garson wrote and arranged another little masterpiece, the single credited to the Big Game Hunters. Next album Electronic Hair Pieces from 1969 used the Moog to arrange some well-known pop hits. His third album was the electronic masterpiece The Wozard of Iz (also from 1969) sets to (Moog) music a socio-political satire built around the children's classic (Bernie Krause on "environmental sounds" and Nancy Sinatra as a co-narrator). His passion for the Moog took him to compose entire albums for A&M of music for each zodiacal sign(!) that predated new-age music by a decade: Signs of the Zodiac: Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagitarius, Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces.

But he also made another record in 1971, which was very different. Under the devilish pseudonym "Lucifer", Garson released this record: Lucifer - Black Mass. It had his wildest hodgepodge of electronic sounds. Little is known about this release though.

The same year, after the Black Mass album, Garson released a not-occult album called Music For Sensual Lovers in collaboration with performance-artist "Z", which contained moody Moog music accompanied by the wonderful screaming and orgasmic moans of a porn star(!). Then, four years passed, before Mort Garson returned with another occult-themed Moog record; Ataraxia - The Unexplained in 1975...


Tracks: 1. Solomon's Ring 2. The Ride of Aida (Voodoo) 3. Incubus 4. Black Mass 5. The Evil Eye 6. Exorcism 7. The Philosopher's Stone 8. Voices of the Dead (The Medium) 9. Witch Trial 10. ESP (Instrumental album, no lyrics.)	Line-up: Mort Garson - Composer and conducter --- Direction by Dave Williams Electronic engineering by Eugene Hamblin Layout design by Victoria Clark Produced by Patchicord Productions Published by Cavalcade Music corp. EMAWAY Music co.


Release info: Released by MCA 1971 - Black Mass (LP) (United Artists UAS 73111)

Note: I am well aware of the fact that this record ain't "rock", but since it's from the very
exprimental music-era of the early 70's and occult themed, I feel it must be mentioned here.

2010-04-15T20:12:00.000-07:00

Jacula - Tardo Pede In Magiam Versus (1972)

Second and last album from italian Jacula, and usually considered their first proper release, was Tardo Pede In Magiam Versus. It had the concept as an invitation to slowly walk towards magically occult worlds, with long instrumental spectral organ parts, classic versus progressive contaminations. First ecological document, harpsichord, bass, mini-moog, violins, flutes, celebrating voices. Dark atmospheres abounded and some tracks, where spoken in (bad) english. Jacula roused a fair amount of anti-sentiment from the Catholic church on this one, and achieved it's mood without hokiness or even a hint of self-mockery.

After the band had recorded their first album in 1969, Bartoccetti had lived a very retired life travelling around old europe visiting ancient castles. He returned to the Marches in 1971 with his girlfriend Norton at his side and actually lived in a castle which he called "A.Rex Castle" thanks to his friendship with lady Monaldi. Inspired by the particular life he was leading there he composed and wrote lyrics for a second Jacula album; Tardo Pede In Magiam Versus and re-contacted the drawer Travers who did the cover on the previous album and got him to do a colour-version of the same image as the cover for his upcoming album.

The following year Jacula entered the studios in Milan and realised, for the label The Rodgers, their second album. The usual Tiring at the organs, Norton (chosing the pseudonym Fiamma Dallo Spirito which she abandoned very quickly) with voice, violin and synthesiser Minimoog, and Bartoccetti himself, now with medium Franz Parthenzy among their core line-up. Tardo Pede In Magiam Versus was released in just 1000 copies with a laminated single cover. The record however, was a commercial disaster, selling more or less two hundred copies. The band performed their only concert at the milanese "Teatro delt'Arte", drawing about 45 persons - the ticket costing fifty thousand lire. This gig is said to have been magic, hypnotic, great and started off with "Ritus", "Magister Dixit" (from the first album), unwinding itself in "Praesenta Domini" and "U.F.D.E.M" (this second album) and ended with "Triumphatus Sad" and "In Cauda Semper" (also the first album) but the person engaged in the record company Mr. Gualtiero Guerrini did not understand the set at all. Tardo Pede In Magiam Versus was an avant-garde work containing messages against pollution ("U.F.D.E.M"). All these events lead Antonio Bartoccetti to break the contract with editor Guerrini's The Rodgers.

Seemingly as a challange he founded Invisible Force (Antonio Bartoccetti (guitar, vocals), Elisabeth d'Esperance (vocals), Charles Tiring (keyboards), Peter McDonald (bass, drums) and re-arranged two excerpts drawn from Tardo Pede In Magiam Versus ("U.F.D.E.M", arranged and recalled "Morti Vident" later also to appear re-arranged AGAIN on their next album Zora as "Morte Al Potere". The B-side "1999 Mundi Finis" was a re-arranged version of "Praesenta Domini", and the single was given to the label UniFunk only of the urge for money. But this re-arranged work did not sit right with Norton and Tiring, who disagreed with this operation so when UniFunk booked the studios for the recording of the upcoming album "Black Wizard", no one showed up and everything dissolved. Invisible Force broke up (Charles Tiring was ejected from the band) and the album which should have been called "Black Wizard" changed it's contentse and the work turned into what later became Neque Semper Arcum Tendit Rex, Antonius Rex's first album...

Tracks:
1. U.F.D.E.M
2. Praesenta Domini
3. Jacula Walzer
4. Long Black Magic Night
5. In Old Castle

Band Members:
Antonio Bartoccetti - Music, lyrics, guitar, bass, vocal
Charles Tiring - Church organ
Doris Norton (as Fiamma Dallo Spirito) - Vocals, violin, flute
Franz Parthenzy - Medium
---

(Sorry, no production info available at this time)

Release info:
Released by The Rodgers 1972 - Tardo Pede In Magiam Versus (LP) (TRS 010001) 1972
Also released by Musik Research 1990 500 copies limited reissue
Reissued on CD by Mellow (MMP 136) 1992

Contacts:
Official Myspace

Many thanks to Tore R. Urke who, after much nagging from me, managed to find me a copy of this record!

2010-04-05T17:32:00.000-07:00

Jacula - In Cauda Semper Stat Venenum (1969)

In 1969, this album of mysterious worlds, evocative church organ, innovative guitar, involving voices and lyrics, creative piano and synth, rhythms with tympans, was recorded in London and only released in a strictly limited number of copies (300 + 10 promos) that were only partly distributed by the producer and label owner to religious sects. In Cauda Semper Stat Venenum never reached the record shops, but the recorded album was the beginning of a path towards an interior research...

The story starts in 1966 when the young musician and composer Antonio Bartoccetti leaved the Apennine mountains in the Marches and landed in Milan. There he composed loads of ideas with a view to transform into music a series of theological-philosophical and esoteric observations, a result of a teamwork Bartoccetti had with the fantastic visions of the medium Franz Parthenzy. Entering the Milanese underground music circuit, he went about many bands (like "Le Orme") and began to compose and write lyrics for the album In Cauda Semper Stat Venenum (a latin expression which means "The Poison is always at the end").


In 1968, Bartoccetti founded Jacula (together with his grilfriend Doris Norton and the organist Charles Tiring) and Dietro Noi Deserto (Behind Us Desert, with (Luciano Iura (vocals, organ), Luciano Quaggia (guitar) and Mauro Baldassari (drums) and the next year records a 45 rpm with Dietro Noi Deserto releasing the one-off single for the Italian Decca label. It had two tracks "Dentro me" ("Within me") and "Aiuto" ("Help"), both composed by Bartoccetti. This seems to be the only proper group which he played with (he played bass), and the style was closer to late 60's psychy beat than progressive. After a mini tour he dissolves the band, which he later deemed to be trivial, commercial and difined it as: "a mistake of his youth". Thanks to Dr.Tosi of the Decca's acquaintances, Antonio Bartoccetti meet Alvin Lee in 1969, who introduced him to the artistic director of the indipendent label Gnome Record. He went to London realising his biggest project: recording the first "embryonic" album In Cauda Semper Stat Venenum produced by Travers, author also of the wierd black and white sleeve. Bartoccetti entitled the album as "Volume zero". Realising that this work would be difficult to market, and with Bartoccetti's approval, Travers decided to not commercialise the work because he wanted it to reach only the "magic covents". Travers himself absorbed the 300 copies in block and made them reach sects and brotherhoods: this was the best way to diffuse the first esoteric message of the band: In Cauda Semper Stat Venenum containing six excerpts of great surrealistic influence: Pipe organs and Hammond organs played by the great Tiring, terrifying effects and piano melodies created by Doris Norton, guitars and bass-line by the protagonist. After this album Bartoccetti lived a very retired life studying philosophy and went to visit all the castles of Lombardy, the marches of Aosta, of Austria, of Hungary and Rumania where he periodically resided, considering it the darkest place in the world. He got his income from giving guitar lessons and spendt his time composing music for the concept of Jacula...


Tracks: 1. Ritus 2. Magister Dixit 3. Triumphatus Sad 4. Vereficium 5. Initjatjo 6. In Cauda Semper	Band Members: Antonio Bartoccetti - Music, lyrics, guitar, bass, vocal Charles Tiring - Church organ Doris Norton - Key special effects --- Volume zero - Composed by Spiritualist Seance (1966 - 1969) Recorded at Gnome Studio (UK) 1969 Mixed by Colin Coldweis Designed by Travers All songs published by Brioche Music Publishing

Release info:
Released by Gnome Record 1969 - In Cauda Semper Stat Venenum (LP) (AR-LP 00299) (310 copies, never sold)
Reissued on Black Widow Records (BWR 051) CD 2001

Contacts:
Official Myspace

2010-04-05T17:10:00.000-07:00

Black Widow - Sacrifice (1970)


	The concept of this album is about a girl named Astaroth, who the last time she was loosed upon the Earth, she posed her con juror's mistress. The poor girl was terribly tormented until, driven insane, she threw herself to her death. The year 1764, over two centuries later, a young occultist, having discovered the power to cast his mind backthrought his previous incarnations, revisits his early life in Egypt and hearing reference to Astaroth by a demon which he conjured all those years ago, he goes on to re-witness the tragic results of his experiment in the 18th century. The songs on the album tells the continuing story... Packed with satanic, mystic, witchcraft lyrics, makes this album the grandfather of all occult rock that has ever followed!

The idea of the black magic act came from the drummer Clive Box. Box was always full of good idea's that Jim Gannon (guitars) at the time put to music. Although this concept was very successful it worked against them in many ways.

The radio stations were very off about playing records that related to black magic on the air (this was in 1970) so their stage hit; "Come To The Sabbat" got very little airplay. In addition to all the lyrics containing nothing but pure evilness, much in the way of witchcraft etc., Widow didn't exactly change the view people had on them when teaming up with the "most powerful man in Europe" at the time. The self professed "King Of Witches", Alex Sanders. Sanders was the head of a cult of modern Wicca witches and had a certain interest in Black Widow's music. He gave them advice on the art of witchcraft and of the occult. Widow even did a film documentary together with Alex, where they played "Come To The Sabbat" live with a bunch of witches dancing naked all around them. This film has not yet been recovered.

Performing live, Black Widow had the help of a girl, Alex's wife Maxine Sanders in their show. She played the role of Lady Astaroth and ended up naked, having sex with the vocalist (not for real though) and sacrificed (not for real either) on stage. This, an extravagant mystic show (choreographed by members of Leicester´s Phoenix Theater Company) and outrageous effects like a magic circle on the stage, swords, candles, incense, and Alex telling them the correct words to say to conjure up the right spirits made the press to show up allot, but also other groups of people....

At concerts, the crowd where often met by Vicars turning up, waving crosses and telling the audience to leave and beware of the evil dark magic of Black Widow. Religious fanatics would preach at the waiting queues urged on by journalists looking for a story. But, of course, the crowd never did leave and clubs were forced to put up notices warning about the bands stage show and act. This only made kids show up by the thousand, so it was not a success for the church - but for Black Widow!

At a show at the Lyciam in London (where miss World was held in those days), Black Widow were told they could do the show if the girl wasn't naked at the end. Of course they agreed, but the girl ended up naked anyway and all hell broke loose.

The audience went mad when the owners tried to stop the show and everyone was searched for camera's when they left because of the nude girl. But a picture was smuggled out and made the Sunday papers the next day. News writer Paul Green said that Black Widow's music and stage show was not an example of Satanism, but more an example of Satanic bad taste. This was another reason why people where shocked by them.

The band were due to go on tour to the USA (together with Black Sabbath), but at the same time Charles Manson did his black magic murders and the powers in the States decided that it would not be a very good idea to let them tour at that time. It is not certain why though.....where they thinking about the bands safety or that it might be bad publicity for them to let Black Widow into the country. Also when the album was released in the UK it came out on CBS the same week as they released Simon and Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Water". That song was such a seller that they stopped printing Sacrifice and concentrated on that album(!) This left Black Sabbath free to go to the States because they always denied that they were involved with occult magic and Satan. It seemed like everything Black Widow tried to do was doomed all around. Still, the album Sacrifice reached the number 32 in the U.K. charts, and the group toured throughout Europe and appeared at the Isle of Wight Festival in 1970.

Their management wanted them to drop the black magic, hoping to get more sales and good publicity this time. This was something that split the band. Reasons were that Kip Trevor (vocalist) & Jim wanted to drop the ideas while Box and Clive Jones (flute, sax) were for keeping it and to hell with the bad publicity. They where "forced" to move away from the black magic, Box left in protest and their relationship with Sanders dropped. In the words of Jones; "We lost, and so did the band". Gannon and Trevor later worked on a project to turn the Black Widow stage show into a Broadway musical. This never happened...

Black Widow recorded three more albums after Sacrifice, but since none of them contained Sacrifice's occult witch style material, they are not added to this page.


Tracks: 1. In Ancient Days 2. Way to Power 3. Come to the Sabbat 4. Conjuration 5. Seduction 6. Attack of the Demon 7. Sacrifice	Band Members: Jim Gannon - Lead guitar, vibes, spanish guitar (composer of all tunes, except track 3 by Clive Jones) Zoot Taylor - Organ, piano Kip Trevor - Vocalist Clive Jones - Flute, sax, clarinet Bob Bond - Bass guitar Clive Box - Drums & percussion --- Produced by: Pat Meehan Jnr. An excellency production Engineer: Roy Thomas Baker Cover: Rick Breach

Release info:
Released by CBS March 1970 - Sacrifice (LP) (CBS 63948)
Also released: CBS May 1970 - Come To The Sabbat/Way To The Power (7") (CBS 5031)
Reissued on CD (CLACD 262) 1992.

Contacts:
Website
Official Myspace

A BIG, HUGE thanks goes to the flutist of Black Widow - Clive Jones, for allot of history, info and lyrics meanings. Thanks Mr. Jones.

2010-04-05T16:39:00.000-07:00

Coven - Witchcraft Destroys Minds and Reaps Souls (1969)


	This album, made by three young students discovering the world of the black arts, is actually a pre-Black Widow's Sacrifice album! The album, gloomy entitled Witchcraft Destroys Minds and Reaps Souls, was out on the American market one year before Black Widow released Sacrifice. Granted, Black Widow was doing Satanic music in 1969 (as evidenced by the recent release of Return to the Sabbat, an unreleased album that is simply a previous recording of the Sacrifice LP they released in 1970) but their material was not commercially avalible at the time. That said; Coven made an album filled with witchcraft related lyrics, mixed with music that was popular at the time, and even with a strange recording of what is rumored to be a real Black Mass at the end...

Coven was formed in the late 1960s in Chicago, Illinois. While studying at North Central High School in Indiana, future lead singer Jinx Dawson had begun singing opera and delving into the occult. Given her excellent singing voice, she got involved in the local rock music scene. She and some classmates began to form rock groups and perform locally. Nothing much came of this, although after graduating high school, Jinx attended Butler University, where she remained involved in the local rock scene. Shortly thereafter Jinx broke away from the local scene, and Indianapolis itself, with two of her bandmates, Steve Ross and Oz Osborne, and headed to Chicago to form Coven. The name obviously had its origins in the medieval superstition of witchcraft; a coven of thirteen witches was a parody of both the nun's covenant and Christ with his twelve disciples. While Coven was not made up of thirteen members, the name aptly described the lyrical content and interests of the band members. Jinx recalls, "The satanic thing actually was something we were interested in and were studying at the time. When you're younger, you're looking for answers, and a lot of members of the band were looking into the same books at the same time. We studied it, we practiced it, but we only went so far. We didn't do anything bad."

After a couple months on sale, Coven's Witchcraft album was recalled. Why? Because of an article Esquire magazine was running, entitled "Evil Lurks in California," shortly after the Manson murders. It was about the whole psychedelic Satanism scene in late 60s California, of which Manson was, by that time, the most (in)famous. The article also discussed Head Shops selling Satanic jewelry. To hype the article, Esquire ran a cover with a picture of Manson standing outside a record store in L.A. He had a record under his arm. Guess which record he had? Yup - Witchcraft Destroys Minds and Reaps Souls... As 1970 dawned and Coven had yet to break into the mainstream market, the band signed with a management crew and moved out to California to pursue their now Satan-less career. Their next two albums are therefor not included on this page.


Tracks: 1. Black Sabbath 2. White Witch of Rose Hall 3. Coven in Charing Cross 4. For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge 5. Pact with Lucifer 6. Choke, Thirst, Die 7. Wicked Woman 8. Dignitaries of Hell 9. Portrait 10. Satanic Mass	Band Members: Jim Donlinger - Vocals Jinx Dawson - Vocals Mike "Oz" Osbourne - Bass guitar Steve Ross - Drums Alan Estes - Bass John Hobbs - Keyboards Christopher Nielsen - Guitar, vocals Frank Smith - Keyboards Jim Nyeholt - Keyboards --- Arrangements by Coven and Jim Donlinger Engineering - Mal Dabis Photography - Sig Binder Design - Jerry Griffith A Dunwich Production All selections published by Yuggoth Music (see the inlay under "Album art" for more credits)

Release info:
Released by Mercury records 1969 - Witchcraft reaps souls and destroys minds (LP) (61239)
Also released: Mercury records 1969 - Wicked Woman/White Witch of Rose Hall (45") (72973)
Reissued on CD Hard Rock Yankess (HRY0001) 2003 and on LP Akarma (AK 271) 2003.

Contacts:
Official Myspace
Webstore

All thanks to Mr.Loki's Coven homepage.

2010-04-05T16:26:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the Occult Rock Library, the place where records from the late 1960's through the 1970's "occult rock wave" survives. Yes, this is a collection of the albums that are often referred to as the most dark, sinister and mystic albums ever recorded. Albums totally filled with lyrics and/or contens about the Devil, black magic, demons, secret spells, lost souls, the unknown, the mysterious, dark fantasy mythos, horror and occult rituals. In addition to this, the music is also quite special, progressive style. Truth is that only a hand full of these albums where made, and the goal is to collect them all on this web page. Here you will find information about them, lyrics and more... The library now includes 13 releases.

After the closing of Geocities the 26th october 2009 and the subsequent journey in the other world, the Occult Rock Library resurrect in the form of a blog and a new webmaster. I would like to thank Mr. Egil said ''the Keeper'' for his trust, I'm really proud to continue such an amazing work.

Conscientia acqute Lux Lucis
-A.L.