Call Of Cthulhu

Very rough mixes from our forthcommin' CD...

And we are a band of unknown pleasure... they been around since jesus christ had his moment of dought and failed... or at least a couple of years, no one knows for how many, not even the members of the band... they are somtimes restin' in the deep black veil, but whenever they feel the need to bleed they wake up from there deathlike sleep to stumble across the world again... "that is not dead that can eternal lie, within strange aeons even death may die..." and this winter they decided to take a stroll down the mourning world again to see if they could make it worse... the songs are mostely improved demotapes that been lying around in dusty chambers, but nevertheless a tribute to the great H P Lovecraft... in a spartan way...

a letter from the author of the book the strange music of Cthulhu, Gary Hill, in wich we appear// Carl B

Here's what I have so far. The only thing I need from you now (if you have it) are any other songs - if you want to throw them all on a CDr and mail them, that works, too - and lyrics that are Lovecraft related that I haven't got yet. Keep in mind this might look a bit weird due to formatting from copying and pasting into the email. Gary H

(quotes from the book)

"A band with both a convoluted history,(technically we are talking about two different bands)

and a hard sound to pin down is The Call of Cthulhu. As you can certainly gather from their most recent name, they are fans of H.P.L. The first real incarnation of the group (there was an earlier version just called "H.P.L.") was under the name "Agony Café." It was with this moniker that they recorded their first Lovecraftian music. In the late 1980's they released one album which included such songs as "Haunted House In Arkham," "The Haunter On The Dreamside" and "In the Light of Al Hazred's Lamp." Eventually (in the 1990's) this band was stripped down to a trio format and became The Call of Cthulhu.

Carl Brandt who is one third of the outfit shared his ideas about how he creates a musical texture worthy of H.P.L.'s legacy.

CB: I try to create a feeling of insecurity and paranoia. I love the idea that either you die or just go insane. Horror is much more than blood and gore, the real horror is within - in your brain. It shivers your soul and destroys you without any physical traces.

When asked about what he feels Lovecraft's work has to offer music C Brandt says;

"His short stories and novels are a piece of music itself, and his poetry is suitable to put music on, I've done it several times, so I ought to know. He created an ice cold music by just playing at your veins."

Brandt describes the process of becoming a Lovecraft fan in this way:

I have always been reading a lot, I learned to read when I was about 5 years old, and early I began to read, and write poetry. I just loved the French decadents like Charles Baudelaire, Arthur Rimbaud and their companions and through Baudelaire I stumbled over Edgar Allan Poe and later on H P Lovecraft. I love to take down the old books now and then and enjoy them together with a good glass of Calvados in the light of burning candles - once a romantic fellow always a romantic fellow I guess.

In regards to choosing a favorite Lovecraft story, Brandt said;

"It's hard to pick just a few. It depends on my moods, but a couple of stories I do enjoy almost anytime are 'The Strange Case of Charles Dexter Ward,' 'At The Mountains of Madness" and of course 'The Call Of Cthulhu.'"

***

(Gary's anylizing some songs)

The song, "Haunted House In Arkham," recorded under the Agony Café banner, is a melding of punk rock and grinding heavy metal. The only real connection I can make from the lyrics is the title, which makes up the bulk of the chorus. This one is a fine example of some of the rawer hard rock that was coming out in the 1970's and 1980's. It is tasty and just rough enough to maintain a certain charm.

With the song "Call of Cthulhu," this time by the grouping that goes by the same name, the Lovecraft influence is far more explicit. In fact, as this excerpt from the lyrics shows, Brandt both captures the general concepts and moods of Lovecraft's work, but also includes a fairly accurate quotation:

"My eyes glows but my sermon is cold / I do prepare for his return / The dark clergyman of the old / invocation makes the air burn / So shudder in the dawn, of the Great Old One."

and further on...

"That is not dead which can eternal lie / within strange eons even death may die. Dreaming in its house in R'lyeh / great Cthulhu waits to rise once more"

Musically this one probably falls closer to the punk end of the spectrum. That's strictly due to the arrangement, though because the main riff has a crunchy killer metal styling to it. The percussion here feels a bit too artificial. The vocals (spoken) are also a bit on the harsh side and a bit too far up in the mix. Still, the cut does have its own particular charm and definitely works well given the strength of the subject matter.

Another song by this incarnation of the outfit that draws heavily from the source Lovecraft is "He Who Whispers In The Dark." From the opening line, "Nyarlathotep; I'm the last in this crawling chaos," it's obvious from whence the lyrics come. It certainly doesn't end there, either. As it carries on it seems as though each verse has its own particular Lovecraft reference. As an example here is the next one that doubles somewhat as a repeated (but altered) chorus.

"You can hide try to run / Step inside try to shun / From the shadow out of time, out of time."

A later verse includes these words;

"Shub Niggurath, the black goat from the woods with a thousand young."

Of these songs, I think I like this one the best. Some of the vocals are in the spoken style of "Call of Cthulhu," but most of them are closer to what you might come to expect from The Sex Pistols, but cleaner in terms of production. It doesn't suffer from the percussion issues that "Call Of Cthulhu" did, and at times the spoken word segments remind me a bit of Alice Cooper. This one is a rather odd, but also quite fun rocker that even shows off some Hawkwind-like tendencies at times."

Gary Hill

Cramps, black sabath, Sex Pistols, H P Lovecraft (the author, not the band), the Cortex, Beasts of Bourbon, Edgar Allan Poe, Punx In Parkas, Screaming Lord Sutch, Swans, Charles Baudelaire, Suicide, Nick Cave, Oscar Wilde, the Bauhaus (the group not the architectschool), Screaming Jay Hawkins, Tom Waits, the gret old one; CTHULHU (the creature who sleeps deep down bellow as we all know)... well i could go on forever, but who wants to read it???