Folk Horror

The Wife Of Usher's Well (featuring God's Little Eskimo)

In 1977 Scarfolk Clinic conducted sleep experiments on a local boy known only as 'Patient # 249'. He suffered from severe nightmares and developed a rare condition known as 'manifest hypnagogia'.

Symptoms include the physical manifestation of hallucinations that sufferers endure between sleep and waking states. For example, Patient # 249 frequently awoke to find, sitting on the end of his bed, a syphilitic, deformed Victorian clown eating trifle and pig's liver pâté. At other times, a confused sewing machine salesman from the Midlands would appear. His parents found this inconvenient.

Doctors observed Patient # 249 at home and wired his brain to an EEG, which they attached to a Bontempi electric keyboard. They wanted to record what Patient # 249's brain was doing and translate it into music. In the recording you'll hear the TV in the background before Patient # 249's unconscious brain takes over and he slips into a hypnagogic state.

Patient #249  01.11.1977

The cassette called "Audio Control for Baby" (Scarfolk tapes & records, 1970) has long been lost but we do have this recording of the music playing in the background at the Scarfolk Inconvenient Infant Playcenta. It was piped into every room around the clock at high volume and many child carers found it to be very effective: Enjoying drinks at the pub two doors down from the 'centa', the carers rarely heard any of the babies cry.

Many struggled with the pressures of the job. As one carer, Jocelyn Hurtt, noted at the time, "the kids really set your nerves on edge, especially if, like me, you don't have an affinity with children. You can be right in the middle of a good programme on the telly and one of them will start up: complaining about nightmares, appendicitis or wanting to be freed from their restraints. I really don't know what I'd do without my Martini & lemonades. You're not supposed to hit the little blighters, but if you've had a few drinks you're less tolerant and you don't know your own strength; it only stands to reason and is to be expected. After all, we're only human."

We hope that the extraneous sounds on the recording do not distract too much from the music.


"Audio Control for Baby" (Scarfolk tapes & records, 1970)

Come Unto The Corn

Reynardine

The Rolling Of The Stones (featuring K. Patterson of Caedmon)

http://scarfolk.blogspot.com/2014/05/clay-stool-tv-theme-tune-klofracs.html

Watch the video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMjcn8_F3SA

The theme tune from "Clay Stool," a popular 1970s children's daytime TV programme for 4 to 7 year olds, was released as a single in 1973 under the title "Demons Come In All Shapes & Sizes."

"Clay Stool" acquired its name from a form of medieval punishment for witchcraft. Originally, alleged witches were strapped to a wooden chair - a ducking stool - then plunged into a river. If they sank they were innocent, if they floated they were in league with the devil and summarily executed.

Samuel Revile, a local priest and freelance misogynist, wondered if ducking stools, which were traditionally festooned with dozens of inflated pigs' bladders, colourful helium balloons, and tethered albatrosses had something to do with the high numbers of people being found guilty.

Revile set about inventing the heavier "clay stool." A year after its introduction 100% of accused witches, mostly women, had plummeted to the riverbed where they drowned, proving their innocence.

Revile's work also alerted communities to the dangers of balloons. It was they, he maintained, not the women, that floated and were therefore in league with Satan. To this day, people who make balloon animals are considered unholy and are barred from church jumble sales.

Though Revile revolutionalised the justice system by inventing compassionate torture, he inadvertently caused widespread redundancies in the execution sector.



Demons Come In All Shapes & Sizes (Klofracs Records, 1973)

The Unseen - Susan's Dream (The Goat Man Motion Picture Soundtrack)

Cruel Henry

Morgiana

The Erl King

From the Active Listener's Nuggets II Revisited Tribute Album, out September 2015.

The Beginners Mynd - I Wish I Was Five

The Cruel Mother

The Gloaming

The Hare And The Moon - The Bard Of Eve (Shcuro Remix)

On the Scarfolk Council label: The debut album from Ragle called "Dormin Slowly Died With The Radio On parts 1-82" released in 1974

Ragle - Dormin Slowly Died With The Radio On

Back in 1975 the children of Scarfolk primary school released their own 45rpm record to commemorate their teacher Mrs Payne who disappeared in 1973, but whose body was found encased inside one of the thirteen ancient standing stones just outside Scarfolk. Proceeds from the sale of the single went toward the building of a new community coven and affiliated gift shop.

Children of Scarfolk Primary School - In the Playground with the Music Room Window Open 13.05.1975

For more about this field recording go here: http://www.scarfolk.blogspot.de/2013/03/field-recording-tim-seven-birds-summer.html
"Only seven tourists visited Scarfolk in the summer of 1972. Oddly, they were all called Timothy, wore identical clothes and appeared to communicate with each other telepathically. Everyone in Scarfolk called them 'The Tim Seven'.

Three days after they arrived in Scarfolk all the birds disappeared and for months after the Tims left whenever Scarfolk residents tried to use their telephones all they could hear on the other end was distant, frantic backward birdsong."

Some of you have expressed disbelief that these events occurred, which has vexed the mayor. He spent all afternoon rummaging around in the archives in search of one of the reels that were recorded at the time. So, for all you naysayers, here it is. This was recorded on the 4th July, 1972 from one of the council office telephones. This is the raw recording and has not been tampered with in any way.



Field Recording (04.07.1972):  'The Tim Seven' / Birds

The mayor has decided that it's time to hear more from Scarfolk's audio archive.

This post refers to a previous one about the disappearance of primary school music teacher Mrs. Payne whose body was found encased inside an ancient standing stone (go here for more detail)

Forensic examination of the stone revealed that it had originated more than 300 miles away and historians could not ascertain how prehistoric man had transported it to Scarfolk, much less how Mrs Payne had found her way into a 300 million year old rock. The police reported it as a chance accident.

When the stone was broken into chunks and sold as 'Payne's Pain' souvenirs in the Scarfolk gift shop, purchasers began hearing ghostly music in their homes. Additionally, the music was heard at the stone circle where Mrs. Payne's body was found, as well as at the geological site of the stone's origin.

The souvenirs were recalled and buried at the centre of the stone circle in Scarfolk fields, now the only location where the music can still be heard, but only on the anniversary of the death of Payne's husband who found himself unexpectedly dismembered during a pagan ritual competition for the under 10s.

This is a field recording made from the stone circle.

Folk Horror

Nick Hamil