Here’s an anomaly; in the early 1900s, the notorious Aleister Crowley, the self-appointed “Beast 666”, recorded himself doing a variety of readings from his writings including his Gnostic Mass, a bit of poetry, and some ritual magick. Today, these recordings have resurfaced (because they’re public domain, now, I’m guessing) as Black Magic Recordings, a vinyl LP released by Cleopatra Records.

Crowley stated on many occasions–including his turn in the witness stand in several of his failed defamation of character lawsuits–that he was staunchly opposed to black magic, so the title of this album is a bit sensationalized and clearly caters to the easily shocked who consider any form of magic to be evil. But this is a fascinating bit of history–Crowley made these recordings on WAX CYLINDERS, so this is one of very few wax recordings (to my knowledge) to make it back into circulation as a retail item, however small the audience might be for it.

Cleopatra is a johnny-come-lately on this set of recordings though, as David Tibet compiled a VERY similar collection of Crowley’s wax cynlinder recordings back in 1986 according to Discogs.com.

It was a very limited release by Current 93, a total of just over 400 released for public sale before the plates were destroyed. The Current 93 release had two interesting features–the first being that the album is a 45RPM on side one, but is meant to be played at 33RPM on side two.

Interesting feature #2–the center hole for the LP was punched, then labeled over. To play the record for the first time, the paper needed to be punctured. There’s no question whether you got a brand new, unplayed copy of THIS record, called The Hastings Archive/The World As Power. And trust me, you’ll WANT to know if you ever find a copy of it for sale–this 12 inch vinyl LP is said to have sold on eBay for over $400 in 2008 from a starting price of $5 according to Popsike.com. Fascinating.

–Joe Wallace

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