Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Haunted, the Companion Album to House of Leaves

Music and literature have an enormous influence on each other.  In March 2000, Mark Z. Danielewski released the famous (and excellent) House of Leaves.  In October of the same year, Poe released her album, Haunted, with many songs based on or in reference to House of Leaves.  What may seem stranger is that House of Leaves also references Haunted, with Johnny Truant finding a band playing a song titled "5 & 1/2 minute Hallway" including the line "I live at the end of a five and a half minute hallway," the first line of the song.

Now the immediate assumption would be that Poe incorporated this into the album, except she began recording the album in 1999, before the book was released.  This is easily explained: Poe is the stage name of Ann Danielewski, Mark Danielewski's sister. In fact, in the 2001 remix of her song Hey Pretty, Mark provided a voice-over at the beginning, reading directly from House of Leaves.

 

If the existence of a companion album to House of Leaves wasn't enough to get you to listen to it, I should say that it's a really good album.


 

 

1 comment:

  1. I bought this album on a whim for its concept and have really liked it. It feels weird reading it recommended on a lit blog, that good kind of weird that makes me feels like I've not made a bad decision.

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