Back in the 1980s, British occultists in the know strove to get their hands on the releases from a series entitled Cornucopia - A Compendium Of Practical Occultism. A collection of private-press cassettes, these tapes were sound art compilations which oscillated between tales of magick, instructional spoken word, drone music and blissful ambiences that could have been described as new-age if they weren’t so intimately linked with the dark arts. This stuff comes off as woozy, often beautiful, rather than black-hearted.
The Cornucopia releases are some of those records which could easily have been lost to history. They are almost impossible to track down, even through internet search engines, and hardly any of the original copies are still in circulation. What a boon, then, that Folklore Tapes boss David Chatton Barker has managed to procure the audio of one Cornucopia volume for a new cassette release. Over two lengthy sides of tape, this record delivers a sort of hallucinatory, curious sound collage that serves as the missing link between Nurse With Wound and Hype Williams.