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.

Dark Nature is the first release from the On the Record Poetry series from Consonant Collective.

About the Record

The audio of the poetry was recorded directly to cassette using a late 1960's Sony F-98 Reel to Reel Cardioid Microphone with a mid-1980's Panasonic RQ-2709D tape player. The cassettes were then digitized and the audio lightly mastered. The records were embossed using a sapphire stylus on polycarbonate using a 1937 Presto 6DSP record lathe.