Mort Garson - "Black Mass (by) Lucifer"

1971, MCA Records.
Tracklist:
01 - Solomon's Ring
02 - Ride of Aida
03 - Incubus
04 - Black Mass
05 - Evil Eye
06 - Exorcism
07 - Philostone
08 - Voices of Dead
09 - Witchtrial
10 - ESP

Get it here.

Looks like the artist (or album, I guess) is called "Black Mass Lucifer", right? What you can't see in the reduced image, and is pretty much only visible on an original LP copy itself is the word "by" between the two blocks of letters - making the album titled "Black Mass" and the supposed artist Lucifer. In reality, the person behind this was one man named Mort Garson, who not only pioneered moog music with albums such as this in the early '70s, but also paved the way for a slew of "demonic" albums that were released in the '80s, mostly of the heavy metal variety, although this is a far cry from a typical metal album it was mentioned briefly in the book Lords of Chaos. The LP lays out printed mythos to go along with each song, and if I remember correctly has no mention of Garson on it at all, to make it seem more authentically "evil" (he also had work in music for films.)

My first experience with this album was probably much like many people who also discovered it out of nowhere. Somewhere around 2000 a friend of mine kept telling me about his dad's "Black Mass Lucifer" record, though he believed it to be a true product of evil - mentioned how his parents would play it on Halloween (barf.) and how his dad wouldn't give him the record. So we listened to it, I was somewhat impressed, and looked more into it to find out that not only was the album name not what he had been referring to it as, but that there wasn't even a band involved.

In searching for the cover art to this album I also discovered something unfortunate - Mort Garson passed away not less than a month ago, on January 4th, 2008. Over the next few days or weeks I'll continue to post more records recorded by him, as none of them ever saw reissues in his lifetime, and have more or less faded into obscurity.