Lovecraft's 1933 tale of a student whose dreams devolve into a horrific reality receives the biggest, baddest, boldest adaptation yet. Platform Studios, Polar Studios and the HP Lovecraft Historical Society joined forces to produce a rock opera concept album that will knock your socks off! College student Walter Gilman takes up residence as a boarder in Arkham's legend haunted witch house. His room is where the 17th century accused witch, Keziah Mason once dwelt. Walter's studies of advanced mathematics and the intense dreams he experiences in the house lead him to a world where reality and nightmare merge. Has Keziah Mason returned with her demonic rat-like familiar Brown Jenkin, or are Walter's studies into extra-dimensional mathematics pushing him over the brink into a world of mind wrenching horrors? This intercontinental collaboration joins producers Chris Laney, bamboosway, RingMan and Lennart Östlund with the HPLHS. The production's sixteen tracks feature seventeen singers, including Jody Ashworth (Trans Siberian Orchestra), Alaine Kashian (Broadway's Cats) and Swedish metal phenom Chris Laney as Brown Jenkin. The album features fourteen musicians, including Bruce Kulick (former KISS guitarist) and Douglas Blair Lucek (guitarist for W.A.S.P.) shredding on guitar. The CD will rock your world, but if you want the truly extradimensional Lovecraftian experience, check out the vinyl LP. This double disc gatefold album features two 180g. custom-made violet LP discs and spectacular large format cover art by Carlos Garcia Rivera and noted fantasy illustrator Keith Thompson. You'll even get the concept album on CD as part of the package. It's an extraordinary Lovecraftian musical event and an extraordinary collector's piece too! The total running time for both CD and LPs is 1:05:36. The Birth of a Lovecraftian Rock Opera How the dream of “Dreams in the Witch House” became realityIt was on a transatlantic flight to Stockholm on September 1st, 2011 when I discovered H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Dreams in the Witch House.” My trip was to be a mixture of business and pleasure, and my colleague, Andrew Leman had recommended I read the story just prior to my departure. A few days later in Stockholm I was to have a meeting with my long-time music co-writer, Chris Laney, who would eventually provide Industrial Metal tracks for a short film I was working on, using deleted Black Pharaoh footage from the HPLHS Motion Picture, “The Whisperer in Darkness” (directed by Sean Branney). Andrew suggested I read “The Dreams in the Witch House” to gain more insight into the Black Pharaoh, a mighty Lovecraft character who appears as different forms, identified by a variety of ominous names – Nyarlathotep, The Crawling Chaos, and The Black Man of the Witch-Cult. As the flight continued, “The Dreams in the Witch House” quickly left an impression on me and I began to envision the story on a theatrical stage. It was when I read the following passage that I visualized the Broadway stage --- And now, too, there was a growing feeling that somebody was constantly persuading him to do something terrible which he could not do. How about the somnambulism? Where did he go sometimes in the night? And what was that faint suggestion of sound which once in a while seemed to trickle through the maddening confusion of identifiable sounds even in broad daylight and full wakefulness? Its rhythm did not correspond to anything on earth, unless perhaps to the cadence of one or two unmentionable Sabbat-chants, and sometimes he feared it corresponded to certain attributes of the vague shrieking or roaring in those wholly alien abysses of dream. In this one passage Lovecraft made numerous references to sound; faint suggestions pertaining to rhythm and cadence, vaguely shrieking or roaring. I immediately heard a Heavy Metal soundtrack in my mind and the seeds of a Lovecraftian Rock Opera were planted. During my Black Pharaoh meeting with Chris Laney in Stockholm, I pitched the idea of producing a “Dreams in the Witch House” Rock Opera concept album. Chris had just finished reading Dan Brown’s “Angels & Demons”, and was craving to compose a Gothic Heavy Metal Musical with religious, end-of-the-world undertones. On September 5th, we decided to join forces to produce “Dreams in the Witch House – A Lovecraftian Rock Opera.” Studio production began in February of 2012, and nearly 20 months later, with the added fire-power of producers Lennart Östlund, RingMan, Sean Branney and Andrew Leman, we present the results of an epic project of passion which features 17 dynamic singers, 14 awesome musicians and a lifetime of infinite Lovecraftian dreams. Rock on! Mike Dalager Executive Producer

Udgivet af H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society, The 2013