composed and realized by Ruth White • Flowers Of Evil: An electronic setting of the poems of Charles Baudelaire (Limelight, 1969)

There are many things that one wish would remain buried. The Greater Hairy Clawed Yamutho comes to mind, with it's ability to come back seemingly to life after one severs the head. Of course it's the parasitic male, much smaller than the female, nestled in the females armpit pouch that really controls the body. Then there are others that the injustice of obscurity is being performed on. The album "Flowers Of Evil: composed and realized by Ruth White • An electronic setting of the poem of Charles Baudelaire" falls into this category.

Over a bed of electronics that go from serious to exploitation in the same track, Mrs. White reads the poems of Baudelaire not unlike a dispassionate Dalek. One could do this after all, it was the 60's where anythings possible. It's hard to imagine something like this being released today on a major label, or major label's subsidiary without either the lack of originality style dropping as a healthy tribute or trying to make a ironic joke out of the whole thing.

But I digress from the actual sounds...there are nine tracks where either her voice is the primary instrument (double tracked, with minimal Moog back round) or full, thick electronic workouts. A reference point would be the Fifty Foot Hose song "Cauldron". The Hose were also on Limelight, a label who released a whole slew of avant garde albums, that regretfully have to see the light of legitimate release. Yes, this is a bootleg, but it was made with care. From the accurate reproduction of the record cover, to the mastering off an LP. There may be a few pops and clicks here and there (lightly noticeable when listening through headphones) but you ignore these things.

And what about Ruth White? From what I could find online, she makes children's educational records, not unlike Bruce Haack did. But where he excelled at a sort of Kiddie Concret, she is very much of the Radiophonic Workshop school. There is plenty of 12 tone scale construction, and dentist drill sounds to keep this firmly rooted in spooky atmosphere.

Please click on review title for sample track: Spleen.