It begins in the 1960’s with a then young musician named Bobby Beausoleil and his psychedelic chamber music group called The Orkustra. Avant-garde filmmaker Kenneth Anger chanced upon a performance of The Orkustra at the legendary San Francisco happening known as The Invisible Circus. Impressed more with Beausoleil’s magnetic stage presence than the music itself, he asked the young musician to play the title role in his next planned film, Lucifer Rising. Beausoleil agreed, as long as his band could perform the music for the film. Throwing himself deep into the project, he ended up alienating his other band members, who left. Undaunted, Beausoleil formed a new band, The Magick Powerhouse of Oz. Unfortunately, after the first live performance of the new band, Beausoleil and Anger had a falling out. Anger moved to England, while Beausoleil drifted down to southern California, where he met a young man named Charles Manson. Although Beausoleil was only involved on the periphery of Manson’s circle, he did get involved with some of the biker gangs that frequented the Spahn Ranch where Manson and his group hung out, and ended up being involved in the murder of a double-crossing drug dealer. After his arrest, and while Beausoleil awaited trial, Manson and his cult committed their now infamous helter skelter murders. Linked to Manson’s group at his trial, Beausoleil was given the maximum sentence."

From Aural Innovations #29, Jeff Fitzgerald

“It begins in the 1960’s with a then young musician named Bobby Beausoleil and his psychedelic chamber music group called The Orkustra. Avant-garde filmmaker Kenneth Anger chanced upon a performance of The Orkustra at the legendary San Francisco happening known as The Invisible Circus. Impressed more with Beausoleil’s magnetic stage presence than the music itself, he asked the young musician to play the title role in his next planned film, Lucifer Rising. Beausoleil agreed, as long as his band could perform the music for the film. Throwing himself deep into the project, he ended up alienating his other band members, who left. Undaunted, Beausoleil formed a new band, The Magick Powerhouse of Oz.

Unfortunately, after the first live performance of the new band, Beausoleil and Anger had a falling out. Anger moved to England, while Beausoleil drifted down to southern California, where he met a young man named Charles Manson. Although Beausoleil was only involved on the periphery of Manson’s circle, he did get involved with some of the biker gangs that frequented the Spahn Ranch where Manson and his group hung out, and ended up being involved in the murder of a double-crossing drug dealer. After his arrest, and while Beausoleil awaited trial, Manson and his cult committed their now infamous helter skelter murders. Linked to Manson’s group at his trial, Beausoleil was given the maximum sentence.

Meanwhile, Anger commissioned Jimmy Page to score the still only partially shot Lucifer Rising. Page produced about 28-minutes worth of music, but the project seemed to be going nowhere. Back in California, Beausoleil refused to let the oppressive Tracy State Prison surroundings squash his spirit, and instead formed a band within the walls of the institution, made up of inmates. When he heard that Anger was still working on the Lucifer Rising project, he pulled his group of inmate musicians together and recorded demos for the film director. Anger was so impressed, he reportedly gave Page his walking papers and commissioned Beausoleil to once again score Lucifer Rising. With the approval of a cooperative prison warden, but on an extremely limited budget, Beausoleil built a small recording studio from scratch within the walls of the prison, and slowly over the next few years, with the help of his fellow inmate musicians, now dubbed The Freedom Orchestra, he recorded the soundtrack to Lucifer Rising.”

Movement One