This song is written by my otherworldly music
partner for the movie, Equinox. I added the vocals, melodies and
lyrics, plus a background effected vocal that sounds like a violin
coming from hell. Equinox wrote quite a few of the songs I used
in Kadath, he's very good at strange layers. Other musicians on
the album include SF's premiere bassist, Kunga Scott Dregsen and
avant guitarist Gywnn Adams (Headsheer), as well as others. The
director of the animated black and white Lovecraft movie, when
he asked me to do the score, asked only that "nothing sound
like anything of this world". Easy for him to say. I could
not cheat and go all 2001 -keyboardy with it, as the film is not
only during a dream, but also set in the 30s. I warped things,
ran them backwards, effected everything...I composed huge dark
avant songs that ended up only being only seconds long in the
movie, but this cd has full length versions. This song was about
the hero, on the hero's journey, alone at night, climbing up a
mountain.....the feeling of pure fear being forced through the
sieve of your being....
reviews of Kadath Soundtrack
"As I mentioned in my review of the animated adaptation
of H.P. Lovecraft’s The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, the
score by Cyoakha Grace O’Manion of the band Land of the
Blind truly helped make the movie. Well, Cyoakha subsequently
was kind enough to provide me with a review copy of the soundtrack
CD, appropriately titled Unknown Music from Dream-Quest of Kadath.
Note that this will be my first try at reviewing a CD, so
I’ll plead for your patience. I’m no music expert.
I don’t know the proper musical terms or instrument names
or what not. All I can tell you is what I like and how it might
work in a gaming context.
Speaking of the prospect of working on the soundtrack, Cyoakha
says on her web site:
'The director of the animated black and white Lovecraft
movie, when he asked me to do the score, asked only that ‘nothing
sound like anything of this world’. Easy for him to say.
I could not cheat and go all 2001-keyboardy with it, as the
film is not only during a dream, but also set in the 30s. I
warped things, ran them backwards, effected everything...I composed
huge dark avant songs that ended up only being only seconds
long in the movie, but this cd has full length versions. This
song was about the hero, on the hero's journey, alone at night,
climbing up a mountain… the feeling of pure fear being
forced through the sieve of your being…'
Interestingly, the result feels in many ways more appropriate
as background music for a traditional Call of Cthulhu adventure
than it does for a Dreamlands jaunt. Which is funny, considering
how perfectly it fit the movie based on the seminal Dreamlands
novella.
The CD begins with “The City of Dreams,”
a lush track featuring Cyoakha’s hauntingly ethereal vocal
instrumentation accompanied by peaceful wind chimes, burbling
fountains, and birdsong. These elements easily make it the most
purely dreamlike track, ideal not only for Dreamlands adventures,
but also for any roleplaying adventure involving fairies or
other elusive, idyllic wonders.
“And If I Fall” starts
the soundtrack’s descent into darkness. The looming, ominous,
forceful melody mixed with Cyoakha’s eerily seductive
lyrical performance, reminiscent of Kate Bush at her best, slips
the listener into what promises to be a very uneasy dream, if
not an outright nightmare…
“Descent,” with its
reverberating strains and echoing wails, gave me the feeling
of trudging through vast, ancient chambers or caverns –
perfect music for daring the Mines of Moria or similar subterranean
realms.
The eerie, lethargic, and sensual “Sailing
Over Sorrow” speaks to me of impossibly
beautiful Gothic vampires slinking gracefully down benighted
Victorian streets or dark castle stairways.
“Ride the Yak” sets
a tone of slowly approaching dread – fitting theme music
for a fantasy villain. (As long as nobody told him the name
of the song, anyway.)
With its long, low, midnight-deep strains, bubbling swamp-like
effects, and ghostly distant singing, “Boneyard
Fear” makes a fine accompaniment to a witch
coven’s Black Sabbath.
“Nightgaunts,” by contrast,
picks up the tempo with a sense of quickly approaching danger
– like, say a flock of Nightgaunts. When the inevitable
fleeing from the monster begins in your horror game, break this
one out for the chase music.
Heavy breathing, creaking timbers, and an ice-cold melody
make “Endless Crawl” ideal
for any adventure involving a haunted house or (especially)
a ghost ship.
What’s a Call of Cthulhu adventure without a blasphemous,
forbidden ritual? With chanting and muttering in some unidentifiable
language, repeated melodic wails, and what sounds very much
like a mutant didgeridoo, “La Belle Luna”
will set the mood…
…and the pulsating darkness and ululating calls of “Nightmare
102” may hint at the unspeakable outcome.
Stepping back just a bit from nightmare into dream, the Middle-east
flavors the drumbeats and strumming of “Sailing
to Celephasis,” working the brain like a
musical hashish trip – just the thing for adventures in
any intoxicatingly exotic foreign ports, be they in the Dreamlands
or in the waking world. (The sea gull cries at the end only
add to this effect.)
With its rapid, repetitive percussion over a dark melody tinged
with wisps of vocals and abrupt horns and cymbals, “Celephasis”
strikes me as the sound of an unsettling jungle trek –
especially one leading to undiscovered ruins best left undiscovered…
In a total non sequitur, “Keep Working”
features tribal drums and quiet, cruel laughter, but its most
prominent aspect has to be the tinny B-movie alien voice urging
the listener to (as the title suggests) “Keep working…
Don’t give up… What is important is that you work…
We are asking you to concentrate on the job… Nothing is
more important than the job…” I can’t
imagine using this one for a traditional horror game, but for
a “Brave New World” sort of setting like Paranoia
at its darkest, I can’t imagine not using it.
Ominous drums and snake-charmer lutes combined with heavy
breathing make the brief “Nightmare 333”
a kind of nocturnal counterpoint to “Sailing to Celephasis.”
The eerie lullaby of “De Largo”
– including a child’s music box – and the
ghostly, elusive vocals of “So Deep”
earn this pair a place in any haunted mansion.
More than any other track, “Backwards in
Time” begs for use in a traditional Call
of Cthulhu game. A musical funhouse mirror warps carnival tunes
and 1920s vocals to produce a disturbing slippage from comfortable
reality. This should be playing on any stereo when rookie Roaring
Twenties investigators get their first taste of the Mythos.
A disorienting staccato keyboard starts off “Ride
‘till the End,” slowly fading into
a quiet melding of previous tracks on the CD. The result feels
akin to wandering a fog-filled House of Mirrors. If you want
to emphasize that the characters in your game are well and truly
lost, this one should get your musical point across quite nicely.
Despite Cyoakha’s stated intention of avoiding anything
“2001-keyboardy,” the “spacey” keyboards
and echoing wordless vocals that seem to stretch on into infinity
would have made “Feels Like Dying”
a perfect fit for the final surreal moments of 2001: A Space
Odyssey. This is a good thing in my book, however – especially
if your adventure has a final surreal moment of its own.
Again, I won’t pretend to be a skilled music critic
here. All I can say is that this unique collection cries out for
use alongside any RPG of horror, dark fantasy, or the surreal.
And if you enjoy a darkly ethereal sound – some twilight
region between goth, ambient, and world music, perhaps –
this could be the CD of your dreams."
-- Dan Davenport, RPGnet Review
"..and speaking of appropriate, the lush, mesmerizing
soundtrack by Cyoakha Grace O'Manion of the band Land of the Blind
perfectly complements Thompson's remarkable dreamscapes. Even
when the primitive animation was at its most stilted, the music
swept me along through the story."
-- Dan Davenport, RPGnet Review
"The soundtrack was inspired."
-- D. Koch, OR IMDB, Movie Date Base
"The film's first big asset is Thompson's art - imaginative,
fantastic, and ambitious... The second major asset is its gorgeous,
haunting score, provided by underground musician Cyoakha Grace
O'Manion....It is great music in its own right, but it complements
the visuals perfectly, and gives the whole film a sense of dream,
awe and dread".
-- James Dominguez, Melbourne, Australia |
