Red Temple Spirits - Dancing to Restore an Eclipsed Moon and If Tomorrow I Were Leaving for Lhasa / I Wouldn’t Stay a Minute More... / First Demo Tape

Originally released 4/30/2013.

Limited edition of 1000 numbered 3xCD packaged in a deluxe over-sized 4-color hand-letterpress Discfolio package designed by Bruce Licher, with full-color lyric inserts & gilded letter-press-printed glassine inner sleeves.

Independent Project Records is thrilled to announce the long awaited reissues of the two phenomenal albums released by this enigmatic Los Angeles band from the late 1980s: Dancing to Restore an Eclipsed Moon and If Tomorrow I Were Leaving for Lhasa, I Wouldn’t Stay a Minute More... Originally released in 1988 and 1989, these two albums sound like nothing else from the period, deftly blending gothic post-punk with pagan tribal psychedelia.

Red Temple Spirits debut has been described as a haunting masterpiece of psychedelic post-punk, laden with exotic musicianship and a unique combination of Native American and Eastern mysticism. While shimmering guitar textures weave patterns over heavy hypnotic rhythms, the enchanting lyrical imagery of vocalist William Faircloth brings a trippy, shamanistic quality to the proceedings. Easily some of the most mesmerizing and vital post-punk music ever created, Red Temple Spirits play with an austerity, grace, and pureness to form that remains fresh over two decades after they originally recorded.

Dancing To Restore An Eclipsed Moon contains ten powerful originals and includes what may be the finest cover version of Pink Floyd’s Nile Song.

The band’s second album has been described as a fully developed excursion into other realms, with rumbling basslines and slithery guitar washes of elegant brilliance. Once again drawing inspiration from Tibetan and Native American cultures, vocalist Faircloth leads the listener through a tangle of mystical themes while the band (guitarist Dallas Taylor, bassist Dino Paredes and drummer Thomas Pierik) skillfully blend heavy tribal rhythms and etherial guitar, building up to moments of extreme tension.

Sounds magazine described their song Soft Machine as “a beast of a sucker,” and City of Millions was called “a song many bands have died trying to execute.” In addition to the nine originals, If Tomorrow... also features cover versions of Pink Floyd’s Set The Controls for the Heart of the Sun and 13th Floor Elevators Rollercoaster.

Both albums have been completely remastered, and are supplemented with three bonus tracks (both sides of the New Land single, originally released on Independent Project Records in 1989, along with a previously unreleased later version of the song New Land) and a bonus CD EP reproducing the band's first demo tape. 

“Released at the tail end of 1987, Dancing To Restore An Eclipsed Moon by Los Angeles psychedelic futurists RED TEMPLE SPIRITS is a double album of tribal art metal and hypno-jangle ... while 1988’s If Tomorrow I Were Leaving For Lhasa, I Wouldn’t Stay A Minute More... is a trippy earful of stark, foreboding psychedelia and heavy, jagged mantra rock laced with echoes of Sixties shamans all drowning in reverb...” - David Fricke, Rolling Stone

“Soft Machine is gorgeous, guitars like pinpoints of light tumbling out of the sky.” - Melody Maker (May 1990)

“RED TEMPLE SPIRITS play music with austerity, grace, and pureness to form in a style that many have emulated, but few have succeeded in making their own.” - CMJ (Nov. 1988)

“One of the finest debut achievements in recent memory comes from the enigmatic California quartet RED TEMPLE SPIRITS. Hypnotically haunting, Dancing To Restore An Eclipsed Moon is a double-album masterpiece of psychedelic post-punk, laden with exotic musicianship and spiritual, heavily Native American imagery. An interstellar cover of PINK FLOYD’s Nile Song only adds to the immense appeal.” - Faces (Sept. 1989)