How I Accidentally Discovered an Unintentional Folk Horror Album by Some Primary Schoolkids

If you’re lost and left wanting after Widow’s Bay, Below on Netflix, a series about a kraken terrorizing a tiny island town in Newfoundland, Canada, is a good stand-in that can keep you satisfied until the next season arrives. I’ll post a brief review of Below next but for now, I’ll get into the subject of this particular blog post.

My dad, a bigger movie buff than I, kept a keen ear out for interesting or unusual movie soundtracks, and because we didn’t have streaming services or Shazam back then, had to set up a tape recorder and record off the tv speaker. You can imagine how atrocious the sound quality of those recordings were. Now that I can easily Shazam any song, I carry on the family tradition of interesting movie osts to add to my Itunes playlist.

Episode 4 of Below--The Ocean Will Have Us All, ends closing credits with A’ Soalin’ by The Lyttle Folk, a song from the album Classroom Projects compiled by Trunk Records. “Featured on the album are small primary school choirs or groups singing obscure folk songs to full-blown avant-garde experiments written and performed by children still at secondary or grammar school. As far as dating goes, the earliest recording is 1959, the latest 1977.” The group’s recording, from what little is known, was “pressed by St Michael’s School, Burton Park, Petworth. The school closed in about 1990. The group consisted of five girls, two of them sisters.” The song, A' Saolin' (lyrics here) from what I could gather from the internet was "sung during All Hallowtide (Halloween and All Souls' Day) when children and singers went door-to-door collecting soul cakes, money, or food in exchange for prayers for the dead."

Now, I’m quite tired of the use of hollow sounding children’s nursery rhymes played behind the creak of a swing in a children’s playground---a tired old trope that gives me all the information I need about the movie I’m watching. We get it: lost innocence, predators, terrible ways to die. Yawn. Classroom Projects on the other hand is comparatively authentic and put to good use in the series, to provide a contrast of the sweet rich voices of the youngsters in the choir with the horror of the kraken, a rare folk song that matches the sentiment of belonging to a backwater township. Absolutely intentional, and yes, you caught my ear. Now hear the rest of the album and you’ll appreciate the thing for itself. No tricks, genuine scratchy vinyl from the past, put together for all those that might appreciate it. If it gives you the creeps, good ;-)