A.C. Fayler's 'The Talking Castle' has been described as 'A very English children's story about death', and it undoubtedly is - drawing on the well-worn trope of a group of children going on some innocent holiday adventure, Fayler's book turns this scenario firmly on its head. What begins as a playful, childish foray into the English countryside, soon turns into the sublimely gothic: a tale of ghosts, of murder, and of war. Abstract characters emerge from the the blistered woodwork: mad kings, crippled birds, and imprisoned inventors, tormentors of the novel's mournful protagonist, Johnny.
Throughout its increasingly bleak adventure, the author maintains the same youthful language with which he begins - leaving behind a beguiling narrative, a book written as if for children but which descends into a near Lovecraftian horror. Set in an abandoned orphanage - its residents dead by fire - The Talking Castles invokes the Lord of the Flies as it explores the complex, and macabre society that its child protagonist's have wrung from the embers of their demise.
The music duo Near Minerals have created a blisteringly tense soundtrack to the book, drawing upon minimal synthesis, drone, and spectralism to reframe the repetitive, bleak quality of the text. Insipred by the likes of Ben Frost, Amon Tobin and Kreng, the group wield electronic and electro-acoustic instruments to summon a rich and frightening world. Fragments of proto-rave fight against dense sound-design, a hauntoligical stupor of mechanical and organic hums, clicks and buzzes. Perfectly articulating the cold, sinister nature of the book - alongside its more playful, even whimsical tone - Near Minerals have created a wonderfully considered response to the strange and alluring nature of their source material.
A.C. Fayler's 'The Talking Castle' has been described as 'A very English children's story about death', and it undoubtedly is - drawing on the well-worn trope of a group of children going on some innocent holiday adventure, Fayler's book turns this scenario firmly on its head. What begins as a playful, childish foray into the English countryside, soon turns into the sublimely gothic: a tale of ghosts, of murder, and of war. Abstract characters emerge from the the blistered woodwork: mad kings, crippled birds, and imprisoned inventors, tormentors of the novel's mournful protagonist, Johnny.
Throughout its increasingly bleak adventure, the author maintains the same youthful language with which he begins - leaving behind a beguiling narrative, a book written as if for children but which descends into a near Lovecraftian horror. Set in an abandoned orphanage - its residents dead by fire - The Talking Castles invokes the Lord of the Flies as it explores the complex, and macabre society that its child protagonist's have wrung from the embers of their demise.
The music duo Near Minerals have created a blisteringly tense soundtrack to the book, drawing upon minimal synthesis, drone, and spectralism to reframe the repetitive, bleak quality of the text. Insipred by the likes of Ben Frost, Amon Tobin and Kreng, the group wield electronic and electro-acoustic instruments to summon a rich and frightening world. Fragments of proto-rave fight against dense sound-design, a hauntoligical stupor of mechanical and organic hums, clicks and buzzes. Perfectly articulating the cold, sinister nature of the book - alongside its more playful, even whimsical tone - Near Minerals have created a wonderfully considered response to the strange and alluring nature of their source material.
