2024 Line-Up

:: Dark Nature, Joseph Carlough :: order here ::

What would you do if you found yourself alone in the woods and everything seemed just a bit...off?

That's the story of Dark Nature, a horror story told through poetry from Joe Carlough. Dark Nature follows a person who's warned not to go into the woods, but their curiosity proves too much, finding themself watched, stalked, and eventually driven mad by the woods themselves, more-so through their own carelessness than that of any of the myriad odd occurrences and creatures they encounter.

The beautifully-rendered chapbook, presented with the poems imposed on full-color, high-resolution plant images, was designed by Joe and printed by Fireball Printing right here in Philadelphia. Accompanying the chapbook is a leaf-shaped 7" record with a 5 minute reading of the full chapbook by the author, recorded on vintage analogue technology to match the dreamy, lost nature of the poetry. The records are embossed by Joe in his home studio using a restored 1937 Presto 6DSP record lathe. The B-Side of the record features a reinterpretation of the reading by Icelandic sound artist and composter Íris Thorarins.

**:: Bone Tears, lauren.napier :: order here** ::

A reverie of the natural world juxtaposed against human nature,

Bone Tears is a 28-page, full color chapbook accompanied by a 10-inch scalloped lathe-cut record of lauren reading and singing the poems that she has set to music. The chapbook and album cover feature lauren's stunning original artwork.

To make the album, Lauren interpreted each of the poems in the chapbook as a musical composition, coaxing delicate and melancholy tones from her guitar and cello to highlight the spare beauty of her poetry. We here at Consonant Collective HQ then put lauren's recording onto 10-inch records using two different record lathes: a 1937 Presto 6DSP and a 1947 Rek-O-Kut Challenger TR43H. These lathes create records one at a time, in real time, by using a sapphire-tipped stylus that pushes the music into the discs.

Lauren has previously worked with us on cassette releases of her albums Mourning Moon and its acoustic counterpart The Mourning Moon Hangs Quietly, as well as The Desert Echoes, her beautiful duet album with Vic Ruggiero (frontman for The Slackers). We're so excited to be able put out this new album of poetry-set-to-music on vinyl.

Upcoming

August: How to Make Money and Other Poems, Ali Liebegott

September: Country Songs for Driverless Trucks, Spencer Moody

November: Emma Frank

December: TBD

Presto 6DSP

We are collaborating with artists to release poetry chapbooks accompanied by a record we emboss at home using a circa-1937 Presto 6DSP record maker. The record lathe works by using a sapphire-tipped stylus to emboss grooves into plastic discs, literally pushing the audio into the record.

Rek-O-Kut Challenger

We create two discs at a time. The second disc is created by a circa-1947 Rek-O-Kut Challenger TR43H. This machine also uses a sapphire-tipped stylus.

Dark Nature

Our first release in the On the Record Poetry series is Dark Nature, a horror story told through poetry, written by Joe Carlough. The story follows a man who resists the advice of others and becomes lost in the woods, eventually becoming the woods itself. The book also contains an essay from Joe about the nature of nightmares, mythology, and personal experience. The book is accompanied by a leaf-shaped record of a reading by Joe recorded on cassette using a microphone from 1970’s.

Bone Tears

The second release in On the Record Poetry is the haunting Bone Tears by poet, musician, writer, and model lauren.napier. A reverie of the natural world juxtaposed against human nature, Bone Tears is a 28-page, full color chapbook accompanied by a 10-inch doily-shaped lathe-cut record of lauren reading and singing the poems that she has set to music.

On the Record is a series of poetry chapbooks with accompanying records by authors curated by Katie & Joe. The chapbooks will be published in an edition of 125, and most records will be released in an edition of 50-75.

The projects are deeply rooted in collaboration between the collective and the authors.