Music of the Abyss
Panelists with musical backgrounds discuss what goes into music for people like us- whether it be accompaniment for a radio play or film, or for just plain rocking out to! Shirley (M), Clark, Louve, Jordan, Nies
"Deep Ones" illustration by Mike Dubisch © all rights reserved.
John Shirley is an author, screenwriter, television writer, comics writer, singer, and songwriter. With over 40 novels and 8 short story collections to his name, he won the Bram Stoker Award from the Horror Writers Association for his collection, Black Butterflies: A Flock on the Dark Side. His novels include Demons, Stormland, Cellars, A Sorcerer of Atlantis, and Wetbones. He is co-screenwriter of The Crow, and has written for television and animation. He performs with his band, THE SCREAMING GEEZERS, and his newest story collection is The Feverish Stars.
As composer for the H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society’s Dark Adventure Radio Theatre Reber, Clark has composed music for Dagon: War of Worlds, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward and Herbert West: Reanimator. His movie, Lovecraft Paragraphs, premiered at the 2009 H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival. His music is featured on The H. P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast. His music for wind ensemble is published worldwide by C. Alan Publications, Columbia Pictures Publications and Warner Brothers Music Publications.
Most recent work includes music for Chris Lackey and Greig Johnson’s Lovecraft video trilogy of The Ordeal of Randolph Carter, From Beyond the Beyond, and Pickman’s Guest, The H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society’s Dark Adventure Radio Theatre production of Dagon: War of Worlds, Hassan & Lavender’s film productions of Walk Away and Dark Chocolate, Christoph Angehrn’s animated short INVASION! Robert Cappelletto’s film The Last Man After the War, original music and orchestrations for the H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society’s The Curious Sea Shanties of Innsmouth, Mass., reorchestrating the prelude to Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Sinfonia Antartica for wind ensemble, fulfilling a commission for the Concordia University of Chicago Wind Symphony. He has many music and movie projects in active development.
He currently resides in suburban Chicago.
Rhiannon Louve is a freelance writer. Professionally, she writes short stories, video game dialogue, table-top role-playing books, and privately commissioned fiction. She hopes to soon add novels to the list. With her MA in Applied Theology, Rhiannon has taught World Religions at the college level, and published Pagan thea/ology essays. Rhiannon's published short fiction is mostly steampunk so far, while her current video game gig is with State of Decay 2, about surviving post zombie apocalypse. Most of Rhiannon's table-top RPG work is in traditional fantasy, though not without horror and Lovecraftian elements, such as her contribution to the award-winning Elder Evils D&D 3.5 sourcebook. Rhiannon has a strong interest in Lovecraftian fiction, but comes at it from a weird fantasy or dark fantasy perspective, fascinated most by the mythos itself and the psychology of such a world. Outside work, Rhiannon mostly games (table top, analog), including a Bleach-inspired shinigami game, using her own homebrew version of Exalted. Her other hobbies include scholarly study of primate behavior (including humans), and learning languages (she speaks French, some Spanish, and minute amounts of Japanese and Irish). Rhiannon rarely watches television in English, and has written scholarly papers on manga and anime. Do ask her about anime and Lovecraft!
Troy Sterling Nies is a composer, paramedic, physician assistant, and gamer. His diverse experiences and vocations have provided him with a rich and often dark resource from which to find inspiration for composing to film. Originally born in Bismarck, North Dakota, he now resides in the Badlands-area of western N.D. Troy maintains a studio in his home and composes for a wide variety of media, including feature films, video games, concert hall, stage, acid-rock bands and everything in between for projects across the globe. Troy composed music for HPLHS' cult-classic films The Whisperer in Darkness and The Call of Cthulhu. He is also responsible for the spine-tingling music and sound effects in HPLHS' Dark Adventure Radio Theatre series including At the Mountains of Madness, The Dunwich Horror, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, The Shadow Out of Time, The Call of Cthulhu, The Colour out of Space, Dreams in the Witch House and upcoming Imprisoned with the Pharaohs. www.troysterling.com