Ghosts

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A spooky time of it this week, with some excellent and haunting folk songs. Here is a link to the English translation of Edith Edwards' Song Of The Spectres. See if you can get those "ffoldi ridldi rai"s rolling off your tongue.

I think old voice recordings have a ghostly quality, especially if the sound is a bit ropey and scratchy - listening to the voice of one long departed but still ethereally present through sound. At the British Library Sound Archive you can listen to all sorts of recordings, from oral histories to music to early spoken word recordings. You might also be interested in the Poetry Archive, a wonderful resource set up by Andrew Motion, which has a fantastic collection of historic recordings.

Here is a link to Esopus as promised, and another to Jonny Trunk's programme on library music.

Here is a video from Norman McLaren called Spook Sport. It was a collaboration with Mary Ellen Bute. It is scored to the atmospheric Danse Macabre by Saint-Saens, and is a "film-ballet" in red and green. I never thought a chevron could be so menacing.

Join us next time.