H.P. Lovecraft: H.P. Lovecraft [COSMIC ROCK]

Why you'll love it

H.P. Lovecraft's debut pairs folk-rock harmonies with spooky, swirling psychedelia. The centrepiece is "The White Ship," a long, eerie voyage inspired by the horror writer's own story.

About the album

Naming your band after a horror writer is a bold move in 1967, but the Chicago group H.P. Lovecraft earned it. Built around George Edwards and Dave Michaels, whose voices wind around each other in high, ghostly harmony, they made one of the most atmospheric debuts of the psychedelic era for Philips. They soon moved to San Francisco and followed it with H.P. Lovecraft II in 1968.

The album mixes folk-club roots with acid-tinged ambition. "Wayfaring Stranger" becomes a brooding, spectral opener, "Let's Get Together" gets a lovely harmony reading, and Fred Neil's "That's the Bag I'm In" and Randy Newman's "I've Been Wrong Before" show off their taste in songwriters. Then "The White Ship" sails off into the album's longest, strangest waters, and "The Time Machine" and "Gloria Patria" close things on a mysterious note.

They've stayed a treasured name among record hunters of 1960s psychedelia ever since. Best enjoyed late at night, ideally without reading any of the source material first.

Also at Kops: more H.P. Lovecraft on vinyl · browse Rock

Tracklist

Listen

On Cosmic Rock (cat# COSMRO005), a reissue of the 1967 album.