Untitled Zeppelin post (take 7)

Consider this the Jimmy Page edition of my temporarily recurring feature here at the Licorice Pizza: The Ultimate Led Zeppelin Sessions disks.

There’s nothing on these recordings but Page, and while there are a couple of tracks with piano or keyboard in the background, primarily you’ve got the erstwhile Zeppelin axe-meister strumming away on an acoustic guitar.

The notes that came with the recordings indicate that the first three tracks, all titled “Lucifer Rising,” were recorded at Boleskine House, in Loch Ness, Scotland, during October and November 1973. The remaining 28 “untitled instrumentals” were recorded either in 1971 at Jimmy Page's home studio in the U.K., or at Headley Grange Studios during November 1973.

Here’s some additional information I found about the origin of the Lucifer Rising tracks: For a one-year period, starting in mid-1973, Page worked on the soundtrack of a film called Lucifer Rising. The film's director, Kenneth Anger, premiered the initial film rushes (accompanied by Page's score) at a movie theater in Los Angeles during September 1976.

Anger, who had a falling-out with Page before the film's completion, eventually commissioned a new soundtrack from an early protégé with whom he'd reconciled, Bobby Beausoleil. (You may recognize Beausoleil as also being one of Charles Manson’s protégés.) It was Beausoleil’s soundtrack that appeared in the commercially released version of the film. An audio recording from Page's score was later released as a bootleg titled Solo Performances.


In the early 1980’s, Anger sold one of the early prints to a collector, who proceeded to copyright both the film and soundtrack. He had the audio from the soundtrack transferred and digitally enhanced before releasing it on his own Boleskine House Records label. The 23 minutes of audio was split in two, and pressed onto a clear blue vinyl 12-inch 45 RPM EP, in an edition of 1,000 copies.

The remaining tracks, may have come from 1971, as many of them bring to mind the riffs from The Rain Song, which was released in 1973 on Houses of the Holy.

Bottom line – much of this is only going to appeal to the serious Zeppelin die-hards. I’m a huge fan and even I got a little tired of hearing Page just riffing on the guitar. No pyrotechnics here. Per usual, I’ve pulled a couple of the more interesting tracks, and then zipped the rest up for you.

Tracks 1-3: Lucifer Rising
Tracks 4-32: untitled instrumentals

1. Lucifer Rising.mp3
9. untitled instrumental.mp3
10. untitled instrumental.mp3
22. untitled instrumental.mp3
30. untitled instrumental.mp3
32. untitled instrumental.mp3

Unzip ‘em all right here.

Labels: classic rock, Led Zeppelin, outtakes

posted by aikin @ 8:14 PM