Finally back in stock...

��Bobby Beausoleil's legendary Lucifer Rising suite has appeared in various forms over the years, first as a limited edition LP release on Lethal Records in 1980, later on self-released CDR through Beausoleil's own White Dog Music imprint that he ran in partnership with his wife. This piece of experimental film/music history never received the sort of deluxe, in-depth treatment that it really deserved, however, until the mighty Ajna imprint assembled this monstrous four-record box set that came out back in 2009. A masterpiece of infernal, occult psychedelia, dark cosmic blues, and shadowy synthesizer music, this boxset featured not only Beausoleil's now infamous score that he recorded in prison for Kenneth Anger's long-in-the-works Aliester Crowley-inspired experimental film Lucifer Rising, but also a ton of additional material that includes some of the earliest Beausoleil recordings in existence. The original boxset sold out not too long after its release, but Ajna has recently issued a new pressing of this massive set, this time on colored vinyl under the guidance of Beausoleil. As before, this is one of the most immersive sets that I've picked up for the store, charting Beausoleil's strange story from his beginnings in the West Coast psychedelia/experimental music underground through his later, more developed prison recordings. And its all essential listening for fans of occult prog and psychedelia.

�� The third edition of The Lucifer Rising Suite includes the new colored vinyl pressing along with a huge four-page LP-size booklet that features extensive photos and liner notes from illustrator/subterranean historian Dennis Dread (Entarte Kunts), writer Michael Moynihan (Lords Of Chaos) and Beausoleil himself, two huge 23" by 36" full-color poster reproductions of Beausoleil and Dennis Dread's artwork, and printed full-color inner sleeves for each record, the whole set housed in a stunning tip-on box illustrated by Dread and Finnish artist Timo Ketola (Watain, Opeth, Teitanblood, Deathspell Omega). It's absolutely gorgeous.

�� The whole saga behind Beausoleil and the soundtrack to Anger's Lucifer Rising is both tragic and fascinating. Often erroneously considered to have been a part of the actual Manson Family, Beausoleil was a young musician in the late 60's Los Angeles psychedelic underground who had already performed with Arthur Lee of Love and associated with the likes of the Beach Boys and Frank Zappa before being approached by acclaimed experimental filmmaker Kenneth Anger to star in his then current project, Lucifer Rising. Agreeing to take on the role with the understanding that he would also be allowed to create the score for the film, Beausoleil began to work on the music for Anger's film just before finding himself caught up on the fringes of the crowd that was hanging around Charles Manson and his followers, and was soon involved in the brutal murder of fellow musician and drug dealer Gary Hinman in 1969, an act that ended up sending him to prison and became the spark that would ignite the series of events resulting in the horrific Tate-LaBianca murders.

�� But to fans of dark underground psychedelia, Beausoleil is more than just a footnote in the bloody saga of the Manson Family. Prior to his murder of Hinman, Beausoleil had staged several live performances that tied in with his work-in-progress for the Lucifer Rising score, sprawling experimental improv sets that blended crude rock dirges and cosmic free-jazz blurt, one of which is documented here. But in the years following his conviction, he spent his time behind bars writing and recording some seriously gorgeous music, using fellow prisoners to flesh out his "Freedom Orchestra", even creating a primitive studio inside of his jail cell. Using ancient Moog synthesizers, trumpets, Fender Rhodes electric piano and a standard rock lineup of bass/drums/guitar, Beausoleil and his backing band created some stunning psychedelic soundscapes that combined primitive electronics and effects-drenched electric guitar with propulsive, hypnotic drumming and lush layered synths, sounding at times remarkably like a more sinister Tangerine Dream flecked with bits of sun-scorched Mojave twang. It's all amazing stuff, and it definitely leads me to believe that if Beausoleil had not been caught up in the insanity of the Manson crowd, he could very well have become a legendary figure of 70's rock.

�� So what you get with Ajna's luxuriant Lucifer Rising set is basically everything that Beausoleil recorded up through the end of 70's, up to the long-delayed release of Anger's film in 1980. The recordings span more than a decade, starting with the original 1967 live recordings up through his studio work at Tracey Prison, with much of the material featured here never before released. The music is a lush opiate fog of droning psychedelia and dark kosmische drift, the first side featuring the nearly twenty-five minute live recording of "Lucifer Rising I" from 1967, a sprawling psych-rock workout woven out of saxophones and other horns, flutes and rumbling percussion, the sound a delirious haze of improvised jazziness and haunting, dreamlike melody, meandering blues guitar winding through the squalls of jazzy freeform chaos, with moments of striking dark beauty constantly surfacing throughout the recording. On tracks like "Dark Passage", Beausoleil and company craft an eerie confluence of primitive electronics and subterranean drones into something resembling a psychedelic horror film score, before lurching into the searing spaced-out blues of "Hellion Rebellion", its slide guitar slipping like black tears over the massive reverb-drenched drums. There are blown-out cosmic garage-rock raveups ("Dance Of The Fire Demons") and monstrous choogle ("Tear It Down"), and the gorgeous, almost Morricone-esque moodiness of "Penumbra"; elsewhere, it's all eerie New Age-y synthdrift, abstract and Teutonic, and at it's darkest ("Sleeping Dragon") isn't very far at all from the grim electronic soundcscapes of early Tangerine Dream. "Fallen Angel Blues" employs the talk-box to mesmerizing effect. And through it all, Beausoleil's amazing guitar playing is front and center, warm and expressive and evocative, his blues licks filled with an amazing amount of emotional resonance for someone who was so young at the time of the recording. One of the best tracks included here is the gorgeous sprawling cosmic psychedelia on the twenty one minute long jam "Beacon", one of Beausoleil's most beautiful recordings in the set, a delay-drenched, synth-smeared starburst of sound that is reminiscent of classic Piper-era Pink Floyd.

�� But it's the film score for Lucifer Rising that will truly blow you away. The fourth and final disc features the complete six-part Lucifer Rising Suite, and it's undeniably Beausoleil's masterpiece, with that vague Morricone-esque vibe hanging over the ominous melodies and brass-laced moodiness, a dark, malevolent piece of cinematic psychedelia made up of stunning electronic textures and shadowy atmosphere, breathtaking passages of trumpet cutting through the dark twilight soundscape, while distorted, crunchy hard-rock guitar riffs sweep through the abyss. The suite later erupts[ts into gales of wah-drenched psych-guitar frenzy and flurries of otherworldly electronics, and in its final moments transforms into something like a more sinister Tangerine Dream or Ash Ra, and certainly on par with the work that those bands were producing around the same time.