Bobby BeauSoleil - The Lucifer Rising Suite
August 5 2009 at 12:13:21 PM  San Francisco, 1967. In the heat of America’s countercultural revolution a handsome young musician named Robert Kenneth “Bobby” BeauSoleil (French for “Beautiful Sun”), is approached by experimental filmmaker and Crowleyite Kenneth Anger, whose previous shorts pioneered the use of rock music in film soundtracks, and asked to star as the lead in his latest picture Lucifer Rising. BeauSoleil agrees to take up this offer on one condition: He is allowed to score the film as well. Thus begins what has become a legendary tale in the annals of both underground film and music. Before the end of the year the partnership had soured; both works were left unfinished and the “Summer of Love” was washed away in a crimson tide of darkness and hate. After a botched concert performance in 1967 Anger relocated to London while BeauSoleil traveled to Los Angeles on a road of no return. Two years later he was charged, tried, and convicted of murder; his name since entwined with the gory exploits of America’s most despised band of jailbirds, The Manson Family. Those who venture further into the details of the crime and its aftermath are sure to find discrepancies between various remembrances of the night in question, and looking beyond these may find an explanation in the chaos of a young man facing a lifetime of incarceration, attempting to process and accept such horrible judgment as his burden alone. Against the sensationalism fed into all media surrounding BeauSoleil’s life and imprisonment, we have these pithy words from Dennis Dread's accompanying essay, which provides the essential starting point in approaching his story: “In 1969 Bobby BeauSoleil killed a man in a horribly blundered drug deal. He was 21 years old. BeauSoleil has been in prison longer than I have been alive on this earth.” Originally placed on Death Row in 1970, two years later BeauSoleil’s sentence was commuted to life in prison. In 2008, he was denied parole for the 19th time since entering the system. Outside, questions are still raised over the length of his confinement. Similar cases, both at home and abroad, provide jarring contrasts: Kurt Struebing, former bassist for the Washington Thrash group NME served eight years of a 12 year sentence for killing his adoptive mother in 1986. In more recent years, the combined time served by Varg Vikernes, Bård Eithun, and Jon Nödtveidt – three of the most profiled and controversial young musicians/convicted murderers throughout Northern Europe, still falls short of BeauSoleil’s 39 years spent inside American prisons. Inside, however, the extent of the man’s ongoing creative endeavors have proven to be a positive force on the opposite side of so much time and horror. Throughout his incarceration BeauSoleil has founded various music and outreach programs in prison, has developed well-documented models for some of the earliest guitar synthesizers, designed and distributed his own circuits used to enhance sound for various instruments and independently released several albums worth of his own music. His soundtrack for Anger’s more or less “final” version of Lucifer Rising, completed behind bars in 1979 with accompaniment by his band, The Freedom Orchestra, remains the most celebrated of all his recordings. No clearer contrasts in creation exist in the two artists once more pairing together to settle unfinished business. Shot around the world, from Iceland to Stonehenge and at last to Egypt, Anger’s mythical pageant ebbs and flows and frequently explodes with images of smoking volcanoes, sparkling seas, elaborate interiors and wide open spaces. Women gesture below the frightening grandeur and awesome mystery of the ancient sphinx, recline invitingly atop the old kingdom’s ruins; with headdresses evoking the goddess Isis, their bared breasts underline the freedom and sexuality embodied by both filmmaker and composer in better days. “Timeless archetypes” used in a vivid invocation to usher in a "new age." This is what BeauSoleil saw, and wrought accordingly; even as such vibrant colors of the sun and sky were locked away from view. From inside his prison cell in California, against a backdrop of regular in-jail murders and frequent lockdowns, Lucifer shone his light upon what was then an incomplete black-and-white print. After only a handful of viewings BeauSoleil knew what he wanted and work began in earnest. The results would be impressive no matter what the conditions. The six movements that comprise the score resonate with deep feeling, poured into psychedelic streams that cross and flow from night into day. Mystery, sensuality and fancy wind together and finally join as the artist’s like-minded visions of image and sound. From BeauSoleil’s sinister entrance on guitar to the rhythm sections subtle pulsations breaking into elegiac horn sections which wouldn’t be out of place in any Morricone scored-western, gradually - and with purpose - comes beauty rising from the depths of hell. Knowledge of the surrounding environs only enhances the awe already born of the direction, talent and will on display. As Beausoleil emptied his emotional spectrum into what was then only rough cut of the film, Dennis Dread has, in a similar fashion, turned the process around entirely for this definitive edition, reflecting both the film’s bold and even sometimes too far-out symbolism with all the color and energy of the music rendered into inimitable illustrations via Bic pen. They tell a story without compromise, a journey of over 60 years through the wilds of a free and open culture down into confinement where, despite restrictions thought to negate these very efforts, the sun still shines. (Adorning each sleeve of vinyl is the familiar eye of the Egyptian sun-god Horus, drawn by BeauSoelil.) From darkness into light, the story of Lucifer Rising is a solar cycle of life colored by tragedy, passion, and sadness, but not yet fatality. “I was not dead,” writes BeauSoleil, “dreams remained.” Here now is the fulfillment of one such dream, and its long-awaited rebirth. The dawning of new day and in time, perhaps even a second chance. [Todd DePalma] Bobby BeauSoleil with: The Freedom Orchestra & The Magick Powerhouse of Oz The Lucifer Rising Suite 2009 Ajna Bobby BeauSoleil Dennis Dread
type: reviews
keywords:
film,
lhp029,
light-bringer,
lucifer,
soundtracks,
prison,
art,
magick,
crowley,
spirit,
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