One of the most substantive collections in the field of apoclayptic / end-time cults

Possibly the best known and most notorious of the pre-millenial doomsday cults, The Peoples Temple transformed from a kind of interdenominatinal religious collective experiment into a horrifying nightmare in the jungles of Guyana that still resonates in contemporary culture. These kinds of recordings of endtime cult activity originally vasught my interest at the same time that I was soaking up the "Holy Terror" aesthetic in the 1990s hardcore ounk scene, which was itself deeply fascinated with the history and psychology and eschatoloical imagery of these kinds of organizations (just check out interviews with Dwid from Integrity friom this time period to see what I'm talking about. The interrogationg of the concept of "evil" and the documentation of catastrophic events and human tragedy is the interest in audio relicts like this and similiar recordings of the Aum Shinrikyo, Manson Family, Heaven's Gate and other doomsday cults has circulated through the industrial and general extreme art underground since the latee 70s, resuklting in these kinds of tapes and records; this is no "entertainment", but an illumination of the darkest corners of religious faith, predatory leaders, and the overrall field of "true crime" and human atrocity.

At least that's my interest in these collections.

nearly an hour and a half

I'm guessing that this was titled after the harrowing 2006 Stanley Nelson documentary Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple, as this particular collection came out in 2019 by TPOS, who has had a long-running interest in these kind of fringe / cult / doomsday documents. It's actually one of a few recordings that have circulated throughout underground media and "true crime" circles on the internet, and with its documentarian approach, the recordigs in this collection serve as a companion piece to the 1994 cassette edition of the Family's musical album He's Able LP. Even seperated from the notororious, awful atrocities of November 18, 1978 documented on the f FBI tape Q042 (colloquially referred to as the "Death Tape") which captures the final "sermon" and act of collective suicide / muder, these naturalistic recordings pair together to evoke a burgeoning nightmare as you hear the insane rantings of Jones juxtaposed against the Family's own members discussing their beliefs and engaging in Up With People-esque gospel music.

Jones rants maniacally as he leads the congregation into the weirdly vaudeville-sounding "He Is Real". A manipulative mentalist "healing service" overseen by Jones is captured from 1973; the awed cries of the people in the audience and his demands to "expurgate" are chilling; that is followed by a stange series of "healing testimonials" caught in early 1977, where members reveal their intimate encounters with Jones and his purported ability to protect them from illness, tragedy, and death. There is a lengthy and unsettling sermon where Jones explores his own personal "divinity", miraculous abilities, and "correct" readings of biblical text, followed by a sermon on the subject of martial law and their perceived ideas of religious suppression on the part of the U.S. government, both from 1973. "Letter Home From A Kid In Jonestown" is a 1977 tape recording of a young man describing his experiences in the Temple to far-off family members; it is one of the eeriest moments on the tape. More disturbing is the April 1978 passage of Jones reading the world news and interpreting it through a twisted lens of revolutionary socialism, racial discord, class warfare, dire warnings of retributional violent , some somewhat warped health philosophies, incendiary hatred of the U.S goverrnment, and his growing narcissistic paranoia; this sounds like a radio transmission or similiar communique.

The latter half of Life steps ever closer to that fateful day. Again, we hear recordings of mostly young men and women in the Temple themselves openly describe their overtly violent religious convictions and terroristic aims in terrifying detail (1977) , and a recording of residents discuss their willingness to commit suicide from the following year, months before it all went to hell; most chilling is when the voice of an eleven yeard old suddenly appears, parrroting the adult's self-annihilation convictions. Jesus. That is immeiately followed by a murky recording of Jim Jone reading his last will and testament in January 1975, his voice exhausted and half-whispered. And then comes the last shortwave radio transmission from Jonestown on the 18th, being monitored by the U.S. Embassy in the Guyana capital as they attempt to make sense of the strange and unfolding chaos, the sense of creeping dread growing more clear and palpable in the embassy worker's voices.

And in the end, we are left with just a song, "1981", that was recorded by the Temple a mere month before the event. A prophetic gospel number, mournful and utterly haunting , joined only by the murky glimmer of an electric piano; a dark shadow extends from the tape reels across time as you hear it, and with the knowledge of the history of Jim Jones and Peoples Temple, makes it one of the creepiest recordings I have ever listened to.

Each recoring is situated in a careful chronological order to take you from the earlier Marxist / collectivist origins of the Temple thriugh to the final days of messianic madness, control and paranoia. In hindsight, you can observe the gradual deterioration of Jones and his closest cohorts in the Peoples Temples.

One of the most informative and extensive documents from this miserable event, with high-quality audio transfer.