David Thrussell & Flint Glass - Nyarlathotep and Other Tales of Cosmic Dread by H. P. Lovecraft
Reads: 252 times
60%
I’ve never counted myself among Lovecraft’s dedicated readers. I know his place in the canon, of course, one can hardly escape him if you orbit the fringes of weird fiction, but the plots themselves never held my fascination. Not quite my aesthetic, and certainly not my chosen realm of interest.
What does hold my attention, though, are good audiobooks - and even more so, when they are framed by the sonic alchemy of artists like Flint Glass. Nyarlathotep and Other Tales of Cosmic Dread is exactly that: a carefully crafted hybrid of spoken word and immersive sound design, half audiobook, half textured, uneasy soundscape.
David Thrussell’s voice is ideally cast for this: measured, resonant, with just enough shadow to cast a spell even on a listener who doesn’t hang on every Lovecraftian syllable. The music itself is delicate, more an atmosphere than a foreground, yet it defines the mood entirely: anxious, elusive, and conspiratorial.
To be honest, on my first listen I barely focused on the words at all. What struck me was the interplay: the way Thrussell’s voice moves through Flint Glass’ sonic mist like a torch through fog. The text becomes texture. The prose merges with pulses and drones, and for once, Lovecraft’s tales feel less like rigid relics and more like living incantations.
It’s an unusual undertaking and one that works precisely because it refuses to lean too heavily on the myth itself. Instead, it invites the listener to drift - half listening, half feeling - into a landscape where dread is not shouted but whispered, and where the spaces between words can be more unnerving than the cosmic horrors themselves.
Listen to it at night, for better effect. Not for the plot, but for the exquisite unease that only sound and voice together can weave. An interesting experiment, and, in this form, Lovecraft even won me over for an evening.
Tracklist:
Azathoth
Nyarlathotep
Memory
What the Moon Brings
Ex Oblivione
Label: ant-zen
Release date: 18th June 2025
https://ant-zen.bandcamp.com/album/nyarlathotep-and-other-tales-of-cosmic-dread-by-h-p-lovecraft
What does hold my attention, though, are good audiobooks - and even more so, when they are framed by the sonic alchemy of artists like Flint Glass. Nyarlathotep and Other Tales of Cosmic Dread is exactly that: a carefully crafted hybrid of spoken word and immersive sound design, half audiobook, half textured, uneasy soundscape.
David Thrussell’s voice is ideally cast for this: measured, resonant, with just enough shadow to cast a spell even on a listener who doesn’t hang on every Lovecraftian syllable. The music itself is delicate, more an atmosphere than a foreground, yet it defines the mood entirely: anxious, elusive, and conspiratorial.
To be honest, on my first listen I barely focused on the words at all. What struck me was the interplay: the way Thrussell’s voice moves through Flint Glass’ sonic mist like a torch through fog. The text becomes texture. The prose merges with pulses and drones, and for once, Lovecraft’s tales feel less like rigid relics and more like living incantations.
It’s an unusual undertaking and one that works precisely because it refuses to lean too heavily on the myth itself. Instead, it invites the listener to drift - half listening, half feeling - into a landscape where dread is not shouted but whispered, and where the spaces between words can be more unnerving than the cosmic horrors themselves.
Listen to it at night, for better effect. Not for the plot, but for the exquisite unease that only sound and voice together can weave. An interesting experiment, and, in this form, Lovecraft even won me over for an evening.
Tracklist:
Azathoth
Nyarlathotep
Memory
What the Moon Brings
Ex Oblivione
Label: ant-zen
Release date: 18th June 2025
https://ant-zen.bandcamp.com/album/nyarlathotep-and-other-tales-of-cosmic-dread-by-h-p-lovecraft
