Dark Entries is releasing a new collection of previously unheard Patrick Cowley archival material.
Titled Mechanical Fantasy Box, the 13 tracks featured on the release were recorded by Cowley between 1973-80 alongside Cowley’s homoerotic journal of the same title. All tracks have been specially remastered for the release. You can hear preview clips above.
The record will be accompanied by a book of the same name in the form of the aforementioned journal of Cowley’s which he described as featuring "graphic accounts of one man’s sex life".
A press release explains that the journal begins in 1974 and ends in 1980 on what was his 30th birthday. "It chronicles his slow rise to fame from lighting technician at The City Disco to crafting a ground-breaking 16-minute remix of Donna Summer’s ‘I Feel Love’ to performing with Sylvester at the SF Opera House," the press release adds. "Vivid descriptions are told of cruising in ’70s SoMA sex venues to primal highs in Buena Vista Park and composing pornophonics in his Castro apartment. The entries are introspective and show a very out-front, alive person going through the throes of gay liberation post-Stonewall."
Dark Entries will release Mechanical Fantasy Box on October 19. Proceeds from the release will be donated to the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. Cowley died aged 32 following his AIDS diagnosis.
Dark Entries reissued a number of Cowley’s gay porn soundtracks between 2013 and 2017.
