Edogawa Rampo’s THE CATERPILLAR Makes Its Way To Vinyl Courtesy Of Cadabra Records

Vinyl is certainly making a loud comeback. Another by-product of the resurgence of the popularity of vinyl is the reawakening of spoken word albums. Sure, they’ve always been around; however, it seems to me that it wasn’t quite as popular or prevalent during the digital days of the 1980s-2010s. There’s something about spoken word albums that demand a flattened disc of vinyl be removed from its sleeve, held delicately in one's hands, and placed on a turntable in order to experience it properly. Maybe I’m just ignorant or didn’t notice they’ve always been around, but the appearance to me is that spoken word albums have been on the rise in the wake of the re-emergence of vinyl. 

Tony Giles who produces the Composers Podcast series that we frequently run here at Birth.Movies.Death. has a new behind-the-scenes interview to share; however, this one is not with a composer, but rather an actor who was recently involved in a spoken word production released by Cadabra Records. They specialize in weird horror fiction readings on vinyl. Typically spoken word albums aren’t my thing, but this one was so intoxicating I had to give it some spotlight. 

What makes these dramatic readings so interesting is that they’re accompanied by new music composed by talented musicians like Fabio Frizzi, Chris Bozzone, Seizon, and Theologian to name a few. As a composer myself, the idea of scoring a dramatic reading, almost like composers had scored early radio dramas of the 1930s, is a pretty cool idea. Cadabra Records specializes in this very thing.

Cadabra Records newest release is a dramatic reading of The Caterpillar (Imomushi) by Edogawa Rampo (Japan’s Edgar Allan Poe). According to the Cadabra Records web site, The Caterpillar was “originally banned due to its content and is regarded as one of the darkest and most controversial tales ever written by a Japanese author.” Color me interested. 

The reading is performed by Laurence R. Harvey of The Human Centipede 2 (2011) fame and the original score was composed by Chris Bozzone. The album cover art was painted by Zakuro Aoyama, the hand lettering done by Jonathan Dennison, and the liner notes scribed by Japanese cinema scholar Marc Walkow. This is an all-out blitz of many art forms spanning visual, auditory, musical, and educational interests.

The album is on sale now and will ship out in about three weeks. Click HERE for more info. 

Tony interviewed Laurence R. Harvey and the pair chatted about the project. Check it out and enjoy!