Algernon Blackwood's The Willows now on sale
An absolutely stunning LP of Algernon Blackwood’s The Willows has just gone on sale courtesy of Cadabra Records!
Robert Lloyd Parry gives a superb vocal performance of Blackwood’s timeless classic of weird fiction. His outstanding abridged version hits all of the right notes during each and every moment of the record and he brings it to life and elevates the content to unbelievable heights with his brilliant and emotive reading of the story.
It was such an honor and a deep pleasure to compose and perform the soundtrack for this vinyl release. The music and instrumentation for this score consists of synthesizers, electronic string arrangements, hand percussion and drones. Barry Knob did a masterful job making sure the sound design and tonal qualities of the music blended together with just the right mix when he worked his magic as the producer of the soundtrack.
Dylan Garrett Smith’s haunting and chilling art perfectly taps into the tone and spirit of the tale.
Cadabra label head Jonathan Dennison has done a great service to the weird fiction world in putting out such an exceptional vinyl album of an immortal classic!
Additional information from Cadabra about this release:
Algernon Blackwood, The Willows LP - Read by Robert Lloyd Parry, score by Chris Bozzone.
Details:
* Limited pressing on 150 gram vinyl
* Printed on a deluxe heavy weight gatefold tip-on jacket
* Includes liner notes by S. T. Joshi
* Newly commissioned art by Dylan Garrett Smith
About:
If there's a finer tale than Algernon Blackwood's "The Willows" in the annals of weird fiction, a reader would be hard-pressed to discover it. Not for nothing did H.P. Lovecraft say of the author that Blackwood was "the one absolute and unquestioned master of weird atmosphere" in his treatise, "Supernatural Horror in Literature," while specifically mentioning "The Willows" as the Blackwood tale foremost with to be reckoned, as in in it, "art and restraint in narrative reach their very highest development, and an impression of lasting poignancy is produced without a single strained passage or a single false note."
Thus, only a reader of equal aplomb such as Robert Lloyd Parry could therefore only serve to take something special and render it superlative and here, he absolutely does so. When reading Blackwood's "The Willows," one is limited by one's own imagination, but on this recording, one has Parry's intuitive and creative interpretation to reveal what subtleties the average reader might have missed.
In the first section of "The Willows," Parry captures the joy of travel and the sad-yet-smiling rueful acceptance one has to its humorously exasperating vagaries. There's a sense of laughter in his delivery, though that soon turns from bemused to befuddled to fearful, and the wave of emotions ridden by the narrator soon becomes the listener's own. By the time Parry has finished, nearly shredded his voice so intensely yelling, "We must get away! We must get away NOW!", the listener has ripped off their headphones and made a hasty, panicked run toward the door and away from their stereo.
And, really and truly – this is a record for which headphones are an absolute must. Not only for the subtle gradations of Parry's narrative intensity, but for Chris Bozzone's audio work, as well. Bozzone's score is integrated with sound design so thoroughly, one would go mad attempting to discover how its Moebius strip begins or ends.
Intertwined together are Mellotron choirs, burbling synths, and harpsichord plucking's, but also the sounds of the story itself. A distant, omnipresent gong; persistently intense wind; and the swirling rush of the Danube are all in, around, and beneath Parry's narration and Bozzone's score both. All of this incorporates itself into a listening experience where all that's lacking is the scent of a driftwood campfire or the mist from the river's spray. At its end, you might find yourself wondering why the footing beneath you isn't a sandy beach.