Mass in F Minor

Studio album by The Electric Prunes

Released

January 1968

Recorded

December 1967

Genre

Psychedelic rock

Length

26:26

The Electric Prunes chronology

Underground
(1967)

Mass in F Minor
(1968)

Release of an Oath
(1968)

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	link
Rolling Stone	Negative

Mass in F Minor is the third studio album by American rock band The Electric Prunes, released in 1968. It consists of a musical setting of the mass sung in Latin and Greek and arranged in the psychedelic style of the band, and was written and arranged by David Axelrod.

Following the limited commercial success of the Electric Prunes' previous album, Underground, the band's manager Lenny Poncher and their producer Dave Hassinger, whose company owned the rights to the band name, agreed with Reprise Records that their third album would be written and arranged by David Axelrod, a classically trained musician. The album was planned to combine religious and classical elements with psychedelic rock, in a religious-based rock-opera concept album. Axelrod was given by Hassinger to do what he wanted with the Electric Prunes.

When the existing band – singer James Lowe, guitarists Ken Williams and Mike Gannon, bassist Mark Tulin, and drummer Michael "Quint" Weakley – came to record the album, it became apparent that the complex arrangements largely outstripped the band's ability to perform them to the standards expected by Axelrod, or within the time set aside for recording. Although Lowe, Tulin (the only band member who could read music) and Weakley appeared on all the tracks, and Williams and Gannon also appeared on the first three tracks ("Kyrie Eleison", "Gloria" and "Credo"), the album was finished by studio musicians working with engineer Richie Podolor on guitar, and a Canadian group, the Collectors. The choral-style vocals were by Lowe, double-tracked. Hassinger was credited with producing the album.

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Wikipedia