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Indie label Sacred Bones has announcedLift It Down, a “reissue” from notorious (fictional) Seventies cult leader Jeremiah Sand.
As a teaser for the album, out October 30th, Sacred Bones has shared an unearthed video of Sand in his studio recording the song “Message from the Mountain,” a six-minute spiritual for the Children of the New Dawn.
If Sand seems at all familiar to you, that’s because, well, he’s not a real person. He’s the primary antagonist, played by Linus Roache, from the highly stylized 2018 action-horror film Mandy, directed by Panos Cosmatos and starring Nicolas Cage. In the movie, Roache beautifully portrayed Sand as a sleazy cult leader with a passion for folk music, psychedelics and psychedelic folk.
Shortly after the film’s premiere in the U.S., a two-song single from “Jeremiah Sand” was released on the official Mandy Bandcamp page, which also contains the movie’s soundtrack. Most clever film tie-ins might leave it at that, but it appears that Linus Roache will be releasing a full album under the name Jeremiah Sand in October, complete with a vinyl LP edition.
For more information about Sand, the video for “Message from the Mountain” includes a full origin story in its description, detailing how Sand and his cult ended up in Redding, California, in 1974; why their efforts to record a seminal folk masterpiece over the next few years proved to be a failure; and how the original demo tapes were uncovered after a fire in 2018. You can also read more about Sand on his website.
