Recovered recordings from the Miskatonic Valley, and wherever its shadow has since reached.
Some of these recordings are the only proof that the people who made them were ever here.
The Archive began in the Miskatonic Valley and has reached well past it since. Delta blues cut in back rooms along the Mississippi. Dance bands from an age that knew what was coming. Torch songs waxed in late-night sessions. Murder ballads and field recordings from the American backroads, claimed by no one. We restore them one reel and one lacquer at a time, and release each as it comes back to us. Every release is made to play under a game, a reading, or a long night's work.
£11
Creepy doo-wop and death-disc from a 1950s vocal group that never signed its name.
The Nightgaunts, Jeepers Creepers, Angel Baby, Room 217, Sincerely, Request Line, No Drops, Sha-Na-Na, Carry Me Home, Earth Angel (Six Feet of It), Kingsport Hop, and Goodnight.
£11
Noir torch songs from Philippa Dix, waxed in late-night sessions.
He Doesn't Cast a Shadow, Cold Hands, The Wrong Face, The Masque, Don't Play That One, Neon on the Water, The Poppy, Last Call at the Gilman, Yours Till the River, and Powder and Formaldehyde.
£11
The Cthulhu Mythos and weird fiction adapted for big band swing, in the idiom of the late 1920s and early 1930s.
Pickman's Swing (after Caitlín R. Kiernan's Pickman's Other Model), White Powder Blues (Machen's The Novel of the White Powder), Copping Squid (Michael Shea), Nyarlathotep, Randolph Carter (The Statement of Randolph Carter), Celephaïs, The Feline Cult (The Cats of Ulthar), Reanimator (Herbert West, Reanimator), The Terrible Old Man, and Cosmic Noir Swing (original instrumental).
After H.P. Lovecraft, Arthur Machen, Caitlín R. Kiernan, and Michael Shea. Live-copyright sources credited individually.
£11
A second volume of Lovecraftian and weird fiction big band swing. Darker rooms, later hours.
R'lyeh Rising (The Call of Cthulhu), Scales Under My Skin (The Shadow Over Innsmouth), Pan (Machen's The Great God Pan), Uncle Jack (Jack the Ripper), The Great Race of Yith (The Shadow Out of Time), Azathoth, Pallid Mask (Chambers' The King in Yellow), Last One Standing (Depression-era dance marathon), The Willows (Blackwood), The Whistling Room (Hodgson's Carnacki), Cosmic Horror Noir (original instrumental), and Voice in the Night (Hodgson).
After H.P. Lovecraft, Robert W. Chambers, Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, and William Hope Hodgson in the public domain.
£10
H.P. Lovecraft's shorter fiction adapted for Delta blues.
Basement Acetate, Ash In The Water (after The Colour Out of Space), Lead Bottles (The Terrible Old Man), The Festival, The High House (The Strange High House in the Mist), Hellhound (The Hounds of Tindalos), Rue d'Auseil (The Music of Erich Zann), The Rats (The Rats in the Walls), The Midnight Showman (Nyarlathotep), and The Steeple (The Haunter of the Dark).
After H.P. Lovecraft in the public domain. Frank Belknap Long's Hounds of Tindalos credited in the liner notes.
£11
American cryptid folklore and Appalachian folk horror adapted for bluegrass.
A Man of Coastal Sorrow, The Blackwood Congregation (after Algernon Blackwood), The Non-Euclidean Breakdown (after Lovecraft), Mothman (Point Pleasant WV 1966), The Jersey Devil (Pine Barrens NJ), The Bell Witch (Adams TN 1817), The Roanoke Erasure (Roanoke Colony 1587), Brown Mountain Lights (North Carolina), and Indian Head (Betty and Barney Hill abduction, 1961).
After Algernon Blackwood, H.P. Lovecraft, and American folklore in the public domain. Musical arrangements after the string-band tradition.
£11
American cryptid folklore, UFO cases, and folk horror urban legends in old-time bluegrass and murder-ballad register.
Hopkinsville Goblins (Kelly Kentucky 1955), Boggy Creek (Fouke Monster, Miller County Arkansas 1971), Devil's Tramping Ground (Chatham County North Carolina), Sheepsquatch (Boone County West Virginia), Cry Baby Bridge (1888 mill-town legend), Pope Lick Monster (Louisville Kentucky trestle), Flatwoods Monster (Braxton County West Virginia, 12 September 1952), Cropsey (Staten Island 1987), Vanishing Hitchhiker (mountain-road ritual ghost), and Snallygaster (Pennsylvania Dutch generational warning).
American folklore and documented cryptid encounters in the public domain. Musical arrangements after the Appalachian old-time and murder-ballad traditions.
£11
H.P. Lovecraft's Innsmouth cycle adapted for Delta blues, rooted in the Mississippi delta tradition.
Crossroads, The Gilman House (The Shadow Over Innsmouth), Obed's Gold (Shadow Over Innsmouth), Black Tide Blues, That Innsmouth Look (Shadow Over Innsmouth), A Man of Coastal Sorrow, Wizard Made a Bargain, 9 Foot Blues, Backwoods Stomp, Brother in the Attic, Shellac Stampede, and Whippoorwills (The Dunwich Horror).
After H.P. Lovecraft (Shadow Over Innsmouth, The Dunwich Horror). Traditional folk and blues sources cited in the liner notes.
£5
Late-night noir jazz for the small hours, mostly instrumental. Smoke, slow tempos and room tone, built for horror atmosphere and the tabletop.
Last Orders, The Empty Booths, Smoke Over Still Tables, The House Band Plays On, After Hours, Cold Spot, The Ones Who Stayed, Nightcap for No One, and The Room That Isn't There.
Original compositions in the noir jazz and torch-song tradition.
£1.50
A late-night torch song for rain-soaked, neon-lit nights. Philippa Dix with the Miskatonic Ensemble. Good company for a cyberpunk table, a noir scene, or the small hours.
Notes on the places, people and things the recordings keep returning to, each one pointing back to the holdings that touch it. Enter the Reading Room.
The recordings are meant for the people already sitting inside this world. Whether you are running a game, reading the source, or just want the Mythos as sound, the catalogue is for you.
The Archive draws on public domain weird fiction from the pulp era and earlier, alongside a smaller number of contemporary writers credited on the recordings that engage their work.
The Miskatonic Sound Archive presents weird fiction and cosmic horror as sound: music for reading, for the table, and for the worlds those stories open.
The recordings are made now, not found. They are modern work, built from old weird tales and older fear, and offered the way a story hands you a world to step into.
What the songs are about is another question. The tales behind them were set down by people who swore every word was true, and the Archive has never managed to prove them liars.
Leave your details to hear when new recordings are added, or to reach the Archive directly. Past Bandcamp buyers with a purchase to reclaim are especially welcome to write.
The Archive is small, but open to correspondence from artists working in adjacent territory. Weird fiction adaptations, cosmic horror in traditional forms, and folk horror recordings may find a home here.