Halloween Countdown: October 14 – polyphonic monstrosities and other nonsense

How far the old archetypes of fear have fallen. Once able to induce nightmares in generations of impressionable children, they’re been reduced to mere shadows of their former selves, acting as spokescreatures for sugary cereals and having their cartoon likenesses used to decorate the walls of grammar school classrooms. (Until some fundamentalist Christian parental unit inevitably complains about satanic intent and spoils everyone’s fun, that is.)

In “The Story of the Black Seal”, a chapter of his 1895 patchwork novel The Three Impostors, Arthur Machen mentions the transformation of the faerie folk in popular culture over time. Depicted as horrific and malevolent in many of the early legends, over time the “fair folk” came to be portrayed as benign, if mischievous, entities. For the purposes of Machen’s story, this evolution was depicted as a necessary psychological hedge enveloping truths too horrible for the public to acknowledge. (Machen was a major influence on Lovecraft.) In reality, it’s a case of knowledge outstripping ignorance. It’s a natural birth defect, not an otherworldly abduction. Feargus got shitfaced and drowned in the bog; he wasn't led “astray” by supernatural powers. The romantic yearning for a magical past did the rest. Nothing cleans the puke stains out of our collective memory like nostalgia can.

And thus it went for poor Dracula and Frankenstein’s monster; although anxieties about a corrupt parasitic ruling class or the consequences of science run amok seem as valid today as they were in the 19th Century. Vampires remain as popular as ever, even if promising attempts to bring relevance back to the mythos by incorporating issues of blood-borne contagion and sexual identity have mostly given way to a misunderstood otherness used as a pretext for elitist decadence (or really awful erotic fiction of the sub-slashfic variety). Frankenstein’s monster has a lower popcult profile these days, although he did recently star in the best of Grant Morrison’s Seven Soldiers minseries, and that’s better than what the Wolf Man got.

Keeping with the wonderful-but-dated theme, here are two monstrous tracks culled from my extensive archive of lost and forgotten synthpop music:

Dilemma – Dracula (from a 1983 German compliation cassette) – The Germans call this “minimal electronik”, which I believe translates into “one or two guys with synthesizers in a basement recording studio”. The bleep effects towards the beginning of the track happen to be identical to those used in the opening theme of The Giant Spider Invasion. That’s a “plus” in my book.

Human Backs – Frankenstein – What I know about this band: They were based in Melbourne, Australia. They were active in the early 1980’s. They recorded this rather nifty track, which appeared on one of the unofficial Flexipop compilations.