Piero Scaruffi Gets Mystical With Red Temple Spirits

According to Piero Scaruffi’s History of Rock Music, “Red Temple Spirits re-appropriated the most radical aspect of psychedelia, the cosmic and ritualist one of Interstellar Overdrive, the Freudian and psychotic one of The End, the one that goes beyond playing with timbres, with feedback, with classical arrangements, with eccentric harmonies, and instead explores mysterious and indefinable harmonic territories… Rather than sonic, their inspiration is, first of all, mystical: each of their albums is dedicated to religious rituals of an ancient civilization. Accordingly, the harmonic blends are the most chaotic and ecstatic that can be created with three instruments and one voice. At the same time, the sound of the masters from the 1960s is revised in light of the innovations brought about by the darkest and most sensationalist British school.” Read more here.

Both of the band’s seminal releases, Dancing To Restore An Eclipsed Moon (1988) and If Tomorrow I Were Leaving For Lhasa (1989), have been reissued and are at radio now from Independent Project Records.