Red Temple Spirits
Dancing To Restore An Eclipsed Moon

In record stores around the world, there should be a section dedicated solely to Small Forgotten Masterpieces. A dumping ground for audio (visual) productions. Of course, this dumping ground should be well hidden and discoverable only through a grueling philological and existential search. The willing auditor would then be a modern-day William of Baskerville, intent on finding the precious manuscript. A bit of healthy, preparatory selection at the entrance.

This is the necessary premise to begin talking about a psychedelic gem of considerable depth, "Dancing To Restore An Eclipsed Moon."

It is the first work of the Red Temple Spirits, a Los Angeles-based group active in the second half of the 80s about whom very little is known due to their scarce production and brief artistic journey. These four guys emerge directly from an esoteric Sabbath and sweep away the freaky splendors of the West Coast to cast a hypnotic darkness over that part of the land now governed (alas) by that primate Schwarzy. Indebted to the Anglophone dark-wave scene as much as to a Charles Manson-style sick psychedelia, they season their tracks with strongly repetitive rhythm sections and sharp guitars that evoke mystical solitudes aided by accentuated reverberations and the tribal-obsessive rhythms of the drums. Then, to square the circle, there's the practically atonal voice with an androgynous timbre of William Faircloth, capable of making you feel cold even in the middle of August at Venice Beach. Rock litanies, dances around the fire for Native Americans winking at a minaret atop Kathmandu (see the beautiful Dreamings Ending).

In the long run, the listener not accustomed to such mental swamps might smell a certain repetitiveness, certainly a good dose of anguish, but at these sound latitudes, transgressive originality à la Frank Zappa is not required. Rather, one appreciates the psychotropic complexity of the compositions and the syncretistic atmospheres of four priests with a penchant for ancestral rites. It is mandatory to mention the influence of early Pink Floyd (and the latter... in short, the just-Barrett-orphaned ones), to whom a successful cover of Nile Song from the album More, 1969, is dedicated. And, equally obligatorily, this album must be placed among the best of all psychedelic production of the last century. In secula seculorum. Amen.