Dr. Z (3) – Three Parts To My Soul (Spiritus, Manes Et Umbra)

Bruh the first track alone got me hooked. Unsure how much a guy would spend on this. I would drop 1k but 3k, it really is a case of If writing on the LP would really bother you to get it cheaper.

There’s a reason there’s 9 for sale and it hasn’t sold for over a year, ITS CRAP. Didn’t make it at the time because it simply isn’t good and people have realised that now so it’s dropped in value a lot.

hi, https://www.discogs.com/user/RECORDSCOUT

i read your review, I was going to pass an unkind word or two re your review, then I saw your little photo next to your handle, and realized you are just talking thru your picture .
bah humbug.

Dr. Z was led by a guy (appropriately) named Keith Keyes and is one of quite a few guitar-less trios to emerge in the prog era. The title of their sole LP is Platonic, the lyrical content leans towards the black, dark aspects of philosophy/religion, with Mordor and Crowley references, and the delivery is pretty in-yer-face, ala Peter Hammill. It's actually fairly original, thankfully mostly free of the Vanilla Fudge organ sound that cursed so many blustery prog albums back then, with piano and harpsichord being used as much as anything. It's a fun record but is utterly silly schoolboy stuff, especially when taken in comparison to similarly themed groups like Black Widow, and the emperors of the kingdom of doom, Van Der Graaf Generator. Both of whom, it should be noted, predated Dr. Z.

I don't get it... What is so special about this album? For me it's just a.piece of crap. PROLL PROG. Bad songwriting. Bad singing. Bad playing. It's bumpy all the way through. Nothing that catches me. There are a thousand prog records better than this.

further to post below heres crowleys hymn to pan, the lines using rave, rape, rip, rend are used in dr z's opening track and burn in anger uses many lines from the hymn below. this isnt credited on the lp but i dont think the borrowing detracts from dr z at all, the lyrics are amongst the best written by a rock musician. crowley may have, ummm, cast a spell over the imagination of rock musicians, a more pertinent appraisal was made by the superb writer somerset maugham who writes (somewhere ive forgotten) that he had met crowley once, fleetingly, and years later received a pathetic begging letter from crowley asking for money, maugham wrote The Magician as a fictionalised pastiche of crowley, eg a fake who enthralled a generation with magnetic charisma, BUT maugham went on to say that crowley should not be dismissed, and compares crowleys early poetry to the best of swinburne, and states that crowley had accomplished many things, including a near ascent of mount everest without oxygen or other artificial aids...this may be a digression from the discogs norm but i hope it informs the dr z experience, pan can also be experienced in the stunning chapter of wind in the willows entitled 'piper at the gates of dawn' and in the excellent 1980s british tv series robin of sherwood with music by clannad, and also if you go into the woods at night and wait...over to mr crowley-

hymn to pan

Thrill with lissome lust of the light,
O man ! My man !
Come careering out of the night
Of Pan ! Io Pan .
Io Pan ! Io Pan ! Come over the sea
From Sicily and from Arcady !
Roaming as Bacchus, with fauns and pards
And nymphs and styrs for thy guards,
On a milk-white ass, come over the sea
To me, to me,
Coem with Apollo in bridal dress
(Spheperdess and pythoness)
Come with Artemis, silken shod,
And wash thy white thigh, beautiful God,
In the moon, of the woods, on the marble mount,
The dimpled dawn of of the amber fount !
Dip the purple of passionate prayer
In the crimson shrine, the scarlet snare,
The soul that startles in eyes of blue
To watch thy wantoness weeping through
The tangled grove, the gnarled bole
Of the living tree that is spirit and soul
And body and brain -come over the sea,
(Io Pan ! Io Pan !)
Devil or god, to me, to me,
My man ! my man !
Come with trumpets sounding shrill
Over the hill !
Come with drums low muttering
From the spring !
Come with flute and come with pipe !
Am I not ripe ?
I, who wait and writhe and wrestle
With air that hath no boughs to nestle
My body, weary of empty clasp,
Strong as a lion, and sharp as an asp-
Come, O come !
I am numb
With the lonely lust of devildom.
Thrust the sword through the galling fetter,
All devourer, all begetter;
Give me the sign of the Open Eye
And the token erect of thorny thigh
And the word of madness and mystery,
O pan ! Io Pan !
Io Pan ! Io Pan ! Pan Pan ! Pan,
I am a man:
Do as thou wilt, as a great god can,
O Pan ! Io Pan !
Io pan ! Io Pan Pan ! Iam awake
In the grip of the snake.
The eagle slashes with beak and claw;
The gods withdraw:
The great beasts come, Io Pan ! I am borne
To death on the horn
Of the Unicorn.
I am Pan ! Io Pan ! Io Pan Pan ! Pan !
I am thy mate, I am thy man,
Goat of thy flock, I am gold , I am god,
Flesh to thy bone, flower to thy rod.
With hoofs of steel I race on the rocks
Through solstice stubborn to equinox.
And I rave; and I rape and I rip and I rend
Everlasting, world without end.
Mannikin, maiden, maenad, man,
In the might of Pan.
Io Pan ! Io Pan Pan ! Pan ! Io Pan !

Aleister Crowley

two important (though not in comparison to eg global warming) facts about this masterpiece that ive never seen mentioned- 1) the first track inverts the 10 Commandments, it is therefore literally a BLACK MASS. i mean, the real, satanic, deal.( you wont find that on a Black Sabbath lp) 2) some of the lyrics are by Aleister Crowley, rather, taken directly from Crowleys poems (from memory, parts are copied from Crowleys 'Hymn To Pan'). And in terms of originality and musical merit this is surely amongst the finest records ever made. The lyrics are also masterful, poetic and extraordinarly powerful. Like a more intelligent Peter Hammill. Its also a tad bitter...

Underrated prog rock album lead by Dr. Keith Keyes, who was apparently a South Wales professor. In 1970 they released a pop psych single on Fontana called "Lady Ladybird" b/w "People in the Streets". The group took a drastic change for something darker and more occult-oriented on Three Parts to My Soul, which ended up as a Vertigo super-rarity. I've heard that only 80 copies were pressed, but I sorta doubt that. It's may be true only 80 copies were sold upon release, but original copies do show up, but not too often, but if only 80 copies existed, an original copy would only show up once ever so many years, where as of my typing, 4 dealers had a copy available (hardly cheap, though).

Many people don't find Thee Parts to My Soul very good, but instead I find this album quite underrated. Here the group takes on occult themes, apparently about the afterlife and how the soul separates into three parts, the one that haunts the underworld, one that haunts the world of the living, and one that haunts the heavens. To me, it's really not too different from Black Widow's Sacrifice or labelmates like Gracious or Cressida, it's that type of early prog that's still song-based and has psychedelic overtones. Harpsichord is very much dominant but piano and organ are also used, no guitar. "Evil Woman's Manly Child" has these sinister vocals, with creative use of harpsichord. "Spiritus, Manes et Umbra" has some wonderful ideas, although the drum solo is a bit unnecessary. "Summer for the Rose" has some nice psychedelic overtones, but still quite sinister. "Token of Despair" is also quite sinister, even during the mellow piano parts. I doubt you want to shell out the big money for an original, but I really don't feel the album deserves its bad reputation, it's actually a very good example of early British prog and worth having.

In a telephone conversation with Patrick Campbell-Lyons he mentioned that he thought that 1000 copies were pressed on Vertigo.