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The H P Lovecraft & Music Thread

Spectrum

Spectrum

Apr 10, 2011
9,996
24,559
Alexandria, Virginia
#1
A silly argument thread about drone metal led to Lovecraft references, so let's forget the sill argument part and discuss this.

This is important.

I am currently working my way through "Dreams of Terror and Death: The Dream Cycle of H P Lovecraft". I've never read any Lovecraft until now, and I have to say that while it's a bit slow-going at times, it's awesome. Someday I'll get around to the Cthulu stuff.

I'm new to drone metal, but Lovecraft seems to go well with doom metal and other stuff. FIrst thing that comes to mind is Witch Hunt by Rush, which REALLY creeped me out the first time I heard it growing up. That part at the beginning where Neil is playing the chimes and all of the sudden gets "posessed"...listening to that in good headphones in the dark is awesome.

Art, too. Let's talk about art. Cover art or otherwise.

The artwork on the book I'm reading is by John Jude Palancar. Link Removed.

[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
 
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#3
I'm glad someone started this thread!

I really pushed myself into reading some Lovecraft after listening to some Septicflesh. Their stories are influenced by Lovecraft, and some are direct representations. They have much more orchestral and standard Death Metal sound to really get it down for me as Lovecraftian. But definitely some great elements.
and still one of my favourite bands in general.

I think the first story I read was The Nameless City. Wonderful, but short read.

One of the really great things is that all of Lovecraft's work is free to read all over the internet. It entered public domain. So it's easy for anyone to just get into if they were interested. Lovecraft had a hugely atmospheric style with words. You can really imagine the places and the people... and the creatures. I read The Call Of Cthulhu [as is just needed for any Lovecraft readthrough], and felt like I was right in the world.

As for music, you're definitely right. Dark stuff. Doom and Drone. They really capture what I imagine the atmosphere to be like. A lot of Death Metal gets fairly close.
But the one closest interpretation that I feel captures the Lovecraft sound, is Catacombs. Their album "In The Depths Of R'lyeh"... Wow.
 
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#4
New
I will have to look up that Catacombs.

One thing I found recently that I love listening to while reading Lovecraft is Akashic Crow's Nest. It's basically one guy making creepy-as-hell music. And the video is...well...it goes with the music:



A lot of Lovecraft stories he doesn't try to describe the horrible things the characters are seeing; he just talks about how they went insane from seeing something so horrifying, something no human was ever meant to see. That video makes me think of stuff like that.
 
#5
Spectrum said:
I will have to look up that Catacombs.
Click to expand...
Please do. Let us know what you think to it, too.

and man, that Akashic... Those low drones were going right through me in weird ways, I'll tell you that.
It reminds me a lot of some mid to late 20th century horror films. Perhaps along the lines of the band Goblin, who did a lot of horror music.
But especially a film like Children Of The Damned. That film had me so creeped as a kid. I remember the music being especially horrific in the best of ways for those sorts of films.

Horror these days just doesn't stand up to that stuff in the slightest. Can't remember the last time I've been scared by a film.
 
#8
"That is not dead which can eternal lie, yet with strange eons, even death may die.”

I love the works of Lovecraft. As many people have, I just kinda knew about Cthulhu from various sources and pop culture. I kept delving into it until, partly thanks to Metallica, I decided to read The Call of Cthulhu.

I was hooked; especially on this idea that a writer can create his own reality, his own universe that somehow seems to seep into ours. Cthulhu, to me, seemed more real and impressive than the notion of Catholic religion (which I grew up on), for example. I was sold immediately.
 
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#9
I think Metallica was probably one of my first introductions to Cthulhu, too. But yes, popular culture really has grabbed that character and done all kinds of things to it.

I think when you actually go on to read about Cthulhu from the Lovecraft source, you really get an entirely new idea of this creature.
and I would fully agree with your statement on the realism of it. Even though you logically understand it to be a story, you can easily feel yourself inside the world itself.

Between Lovecraft and Tolkien, I was influenced to start working on my own worldbuilding project.
 
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#10
Tolkien and Lovecraft, LOL. Like two sides of the same coin.

The difference is that when I started reading Lovecraft I actually had to look stuff up to make sure some of the New England towns were fake, and some of the historical figures. He wrote as if these were real places. Tolkien's world from the start is obviously fictional.

I love some of Lovecraft's phrasing and verbal imagery. "The crawling chaos Nyarlathotep", "terrors and blasphemies gnaw at each other in the darkness", etc.
 
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#11
Spectrum said:
Tolkien and Lovecraft, LOL. Like two sides of the same coin.

The difference is that when I started reading Lovecraft I actually had to look stuff up to make sure some of the New England towns were fake, and some of the historical figures. He wrote as if these were real places. Tolkien's world from the start is obviously fictional.

I love some of Lovecraft's phrasing and verbal imagery. "The crawling chaos Nyarlathotep", "terrors and blasphemies gnaw at each other in the darkness", etc.
Click to expand...
Tolkien's world is pre-Europe. His ethinc groups are based off of Europeans, and their traits and geographies are pretty true to life. Basically, Tolkien would eventually lead his world to make the current world. He's on record saying part of his drive to write was to give England a coherent mythology, since the Arthurian myth had lots of non-English influence. What I'm saying is, I read Tolkien and see what cities and locations COULD be, and Lovecraft leads me to see where things are in a general sense.
 
#15
No, I wasn't being sarcastic, I was expressing joy at the mention of Tolkein in my Lovecraft thread. When I was growing up I read all 4 Tolkein books twice in a row and couldn't get enough. (until I tried the Silmarillion, which put me promptly to sleep, but it's a different animal, really.)

Tolkein is, even with all the war and violence, pretty happy and uplifting, while Lovecraft is dark and menacing. Most of the Lovecraft stories I've read are like warnings against knowledge that you're better off without. That there is a hidden world beyond what humans can see, and to see it will kill you or drive you insane.

That makes for great horror writing.
 
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#18
I should've mentioned this...

Dead Meadow's first album has a song on it called "Sleepy Silver Door". I love the song, and the lyrics are about the narrator trying to get back to a dreamworld he once visited, but he's lost the key to the "sleepy silver door".

Recently I read Lovecraft's story "The Silver Key", in which Randolph Carter (character in several stories) is having the same problem. My guess is that whoever wrote the lyrics is a Lovecraft fan.

Even more so, because they re-recorded the song on their album Feathers, with a longer jam and a drum intro, and called it "Through the Gates of the...Sleepy Silver Door", and Lovecraft's sequel to The Silver Key is called "Through the Gates of the Silver Key".

Here's the tune:
 
#20
It's strange to see Lovecraft getting so much notice now. I started reading HPL in the 60s as a boy and NOBODY was interested in Lovecraft when I was in high school--nobody. I bought a big load of paperbacks which I left laying around when I left home to serve in the US Navy. While I was gone, my nephew turned old enough to read and found all these paperbacks and, like me, became a Lovecraft fanatic. He was born with an artistic flair and could draw extremely well from a young age. Today as a man in his 30s, in addition to his degree in biology and teaching at Indiana U, he is an aspiring artist and his subject matter leaves little doubt as to what invaded his imagination from a young age and now demands to be released in artistic expression. There are a few Lovecraft websites that are very interested in his work. I don't if any bands have contacted him. I got him interested in punk rock too as a child. Those are his two obsessions--Lovecraft and punk rock/metal. Aren't we uncles special?

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This was an experiment with graphite and charcoal.

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Looks like this may have been inspired by "The Colour Out of Space."

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