Cult Of Luna – Demo (Self-Released CDr)

Next Tuesday I get to see Cult of Luna live! It’ll be the first chance to see them perform since their set with Julie Christmas at Psycho Las Vegas in 2017. In anticipation of that concert, I figured I’d share a related piece of Cult Of Luna ephemera with you, my dear readers.

This is the band’s demo CDr, recorded over two days in January of 1999. I assume they gave copies to friends and family, but the rest were sent to label contacts around the globe in the hopes of scoring a record deal. It contains two tracks that have never appeared on any other Cult Of Luna albums: “Descended From Light” and “Serpent Caress.” Although the demo appears on the Encyclopedia Metallum, there is precious little info available about this online. So, I figure I’ll share this copy with the world so that all the info is out there.

The two-track blue-bottom CDr comes housed in a generic jewel case with clear tray inside. The front insert is folded in half and blank inside. The front cover credits the artist as “Luna, inc.” and the only reference to the name “Cult Of Luna” appears on the tray card, which offers the email address “cultofluna@hotmail.com” as the band’s contact info. If any of the members of Cult Of Luna are reading this, I should inform you that according to the website “Have I Been Pwned,” your email address was compromised during a hack of MyHeritage and also 2,844 separate data breaches that occurred in 2018. You might want to change the password for that account.

The inside of the front insert lists the band members, all of whom played on future Cult Of Luna albums except for bassist Fredrik Renstrom, who appeared on only this recording. The insert also mentions that the tracks were recorded at “Second Home Studios” on the 5th and 6th of January, 1999.

The cool thing about this particular copy of the demo is that it came with an additional insert, a kind of homemade press release penned by the band. It states:

“Hello. You have just received a demo-CD from us, LUNA inc. We are a band stationed in Umeå, northern Sweden, and we formed it for about six months ago. Our musical backgrounds basically originate from the hardcore-scene in Umeå, and all members have been (and still are) active in other acts. Acts such as ECLIPSE (hard-hitting acme meets coalesce meets neurosis from Umeå), AZTEC TWO STEP (grind-madness from Skellefteå) and SITUATION 187 (slow evil-core from Umeå) are a couple of bands that we have been active in. These backgrounds + all the other music that inspire us, have lead us to the musical position that we now are in. Even though you can notice our inspiration sources, our intention is always to take our music one step further and to find our own “style”. Our intention with this demo is to get you interested to get us some-kind of record deal. For the moment we have 5 songs in the same spirit as the demo tracks, but better. We have you find our music interesting. LUNA, inc.” It then includes a mailing address, phone number, and the cultofluna@hotmail.com email contact for the band.

How fucking cool is that? There can’t be many of these in circulation. Cult of Luna’s first album (the self-titled one) was released in 2001 by Rage Of Achilles / Earache in the UK, and before that their only releases were a split with fellow Swedish cohorts Switchblade on Trust No One, and maybe the 2001 single they released on Hydra Head in the US. These two recordings predate those by a year or two!

Enjoy the artwork, check out the songs, I’ll keep them posted for about a week and after that you’ll have to find ’em yourself on YouTube.