The White People

CADABR-102 2023
2 LP
Second only to his own The Great God Pan in terms of folk horror brilliance, Arthur Machen's The White People is a novella whose scope encompasses another hidden world just outside our own. Not for nothing is the "the curious and dimly disquieting chronicle" H.P. Lovecraft's second favorite piece of weird fiction after Algernon Blackwood's The Willows. In Lovecraft’s seminal essay, "Supernatural Horror in Literature," he ably sums up The White People as "a triumph of skilful selectiveness and restraint, accumulates enormous power as it flows on in a stream of innocent childish prattle."
Read here by Laurence R. Harvey and scored by Chris Bozzone, Machen's nesting tale is given a masterful interpretation. The opening frame tale sees Harvey flitting between three voices with nary a pause before the novella moves into into "The Green Book," wherein Harvey effortlessly transitions from three old men sitting and drinking while pontificating upon the true nature of sin to a young girl's naiveté as she explores a hidden world.
It's a masterful performance which is made all the more impressive because then, within "The Green Book," Harvey then tells further stories in the voice of the young girl, retelling tales heard from her nurse. It's a delicate balancing act which requires a nimble voice and skillful interpretive skills, and it should come to no surprise of longtime fans of Cadabra that Harvey is more than up to the task. At no point is the hypnotic, twisting nature of The White People broken, unless it is to be thrust back into reality in order to change sides on the record.
Harvey's reading is scored by Chris Bozzone, who once again has paired the electronic with the acoustic to pull the listener back in time. At points, it's as though the composer and musician has gone full folk, using instruments such as one would have heard in a bygone age, evoking a sense of discovery in the long ago, while the here and now – such as it is in a story which folds in upon itself myriad times – is brought to life with warm, pulsing synthesizers. The swim and oscillation of the score, regardless of instrumentation used, lulls the listener into the world of The White People as if in a daze.
Credits:
Written by Arthur Machen
Read by Laurence R. Harvey
Score by Chris Bozzone
Artwork by Karmazid
Liner notes by S.T. Joshi
A		The White People - Part 1
B		The White People - Part 2
C		The White People - Part 3
D		The White People - Part 4
Limited pressing on 150 gram vinyl
Fully unabridged reading 
Printed on a deluxe heavy-weight tip-on gatefold jacket
24" X 36" promotional poster 
Variants:
Random color
Natural white
Frosted white with black swirl (subscriber)
White and black splatter (xx copies)
Wax mage (25 numbered copies)
Test pressing (25 numbered copies)