CULT MUSIC

droid

Well-known member
By which I mean the music of actual cults.

Like this album by Travolta & Frank Stallone - with a vocal performance by Hubbard himself:



Also with the apollo stars featuring Chick Corea and a fairlight. Hubbard would apparently fine them for every wrong note they played.


David Koresh's dismal folk rock


Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple's choir


Lord Death's Counting song by Aum Shinriko leader Shoko Asahara

http://blogfiles.wfmu.org/LG/Asahara/Shoko_Asahara_-_01_-_Lord_Death_s_Counting_Song.mp3

The new age stylings of Armenian guru George Ivanovich Gurdjieff


Sabbath Assembly - an 'occult rock band' who decided to recreate some of the unrecorded hymns of the Process church. See also, Psychic TV


Any more?
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
most famous one you missed is probably Ya Ho Wah 13 and various related projects of The Source Family, hippie outfit run by an older WWII vet caller Father Yod

one of those things I've never gotten around to but it's pretty highly regarded psychedelic freeform rock, appears on the NWW list

also Beck is a Scientologist and I'm not gonna look it up but I'm sure there have to be more relatively famous musicians given their aptitude for recruiting celebrities
 

droid

Well-known member
Oh yeah, the father Yod stuff is great.


There's Manson as well of course, but too obvious.

Doug-E fresh and Issac Hayes did a Scientology album as well, but there's barely a trace of it online.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
one interesting note about Ya Ho Wha is that Sky Saxon (of The Seeds) was a member of the cult + I assume the main/only musical talent

another thing - not quite a cult but I'm reminded of that Ash Ra Tempel LP they recorded with a fugitive Timothy Leary in Switzerland. it is not very good.
 

martin

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Children of God/Family International churned out more of this stuff than anyone else. Investigate at your own peril.

I suppose if you consider the 'Manson family' a cult rather than some whacked-out hippy kids, the "Family Jams" recordings would fit into this.

Just remembered, I have a 10" at home of very soft hymns sung by members of the Divine Light Mission from the '60s, but can't honestly remember much about it.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
Children of God/Family International churned out more of this stuff than anyone else
ya was gonna mention that the original blooze rawk Fleetwood Mac ended partially cos one of the dudes left to join the Children of God

tho also cos Peter Green had a Barrettish acid freakout
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
also not quite a cult but there's the massive, disproportionate influence of the 5%ers on rap, especially in the late 80s thru the millennium or so
 

droid

Well-known member
Its not musical, but the Aum Shinryko anime has to be one of the more surreal cult media artefacts


One of their indoctrination methods was clandestine LSD (which they manufactured on an industrial scale) mega-dosing of new members.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
also the whole Krishnacore thing

Ray Cappo and Porcell from Youth of Today converted to Krishna in the early 90s and spawned this weird Krishna hardcore scene

thankfully before my time and not a scene I'd ever be interested but definitely it was a thing

on a related note, hardline SxE has always been kind of a cult unto itself
 

martin

----
Its not musical, but the Aum Shinryko anime has to be one of the more surreal cult media artefacts
Dunno about you, but I was sold on the first 10 seconds of that.

Jon Loder of Southern Studios/Records fame was a scientologist, who allegedly prevented one of his signed acts, Salad From Atlantis, from releasing a record taking the piss out of El Ron. This also led to some great wind-up posts in the days of the old Southern Crass forum, claiming Crass was a covert scientologist brainwashing project. The forum disappeared shortly afterwards - coincidence???

On another side-note, big text by The Process Church on the inner gatefold of Funkadelic's MaggotBrain.
 
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padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
One of their indoctrination methods was clandestine LSD (which they manufactured on an industrial scale) mega-dosing of new members.
it's a pretty old, tried + true tactic

the Hashishin, various mystery religions of the Greco-Roman world, etc
 

droid

Well-known member
it's a pretty old, tried + true tactic

the Hashishin, various mystery religions of the Greco-Roman world, etc

Of course, but what struck me is that they the victims didn't have any advance knowledge, they just found themselves tripping on 1000mg of LSD without no clue of what was going on - it's usually part of a ritual of some kind that the novice has (at least ostensibly) consented to.
 
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