Sounds of Darkness

Ruth White – Flowers of Evil (1969)
Weirdness

I find this one hard to describe. I was introduced to it by my favorite Halloween internet radio station, Never Ending Wonder radio. It is an odd recording of Ms. White’s readings of the collection of poems “Flowers of Evil” by Charles Baudelaire, set to sparse and unusual electronic music. Ms. White’s voice is often twisted and distorted by reverb and other audio effects (making her sometimes difficult to understand). Then again, when she’s reading words like

“An angel – rash wanderer – tempted by the love of ugliness – lashing out like a swimmer in the depths of a huge nightmare – and struggling, o fierce anguish, against the gigantic undertow which grows seemingly like a horde of madmen …”

… this is twisted and distorted stuff anyway. She doesn’t get to use her happy voice reading stuff like that. And the electronic effects bleakly enhance the mood. The eeriest tracks are “The Irremediable”, “Spleen” (with its backward-chanting effects), and the witch’s dance-like feel of “The Litanies of Satan”. Yeah … that sounds like a cheerful little ditty.

If you have an ear for early electronic music (like Morton Subotnick or Mort Garson), you might find this a interesting listen. I encourage everybody to give it a listen – it’s a very unusual recording for its time.

You can find it here, along with another of her albums which is just as electronic, but not nearly as spooky.