AMBIENT ARCANA

Three Stories by H.P. Lovecraft

This month we take a trio of trips into the Infinite Unknown with weird fiction icon Howard Phillips Lovecraft-
“Ex Oblivione,” “Nyarlathotep,” and “The Book.”
All Music & Music and Audio Production by Bob Familiar
Narration by Jim Billbrough
 
For further exploration of Lovecraft and his works we suggest checking out these websites:
The H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society
https://www.hplhs.org/
And
Strange Studies of Strange Stories
(Formally The HP Podcraft Literary Podcast)
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/strange-studies-of-strange-stories/id1638947147
Or the older, more Lovecraft-centric version of the podcast, which is still active at this time:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-h-p-lovecraft-literary-podcast/id369757090
And there’s even a YouTube Channel:
https://youtube.com/@witchhousemedia?feature=shared

Cool Arctic Stories for Hot Summer Nights

A small sampling of Inuit, Yup’ik, and Unangax folktales collected by American and European Scholar-Explorers in the late 19th and early 20th century. Even in this muted form, sometimes translated through two or three languages, these stories still retain the power, beauty, and humor of the original folktales.
The word Eskimo has long been known to be a misnomer, even as far back as the mid 19th century. Since most of the material used here came from Ethnological surveys that sought to be as specific as possible the term occurs rarely in the collected stories and is mainly used in the titles of the works. 
All Music & Music and Audio Production by Bob Familiar
Narration by Jim Billbrough

Three Stories by Ambrose Bierce

 Biercemania!
Three dark and evocative tales by surprise ending aficionado Ambrose Bierce:
"The Boarded Window," "John Mortonson's Funeral," and "The Applicant."
All Music and Audio Production by Bob Familiar
Music by Man Tray and Bob Familiar
All stories read by Bob Billbrough
 
 

Lafcadio Hearn’s Tales From Ghostly Japan, Vol. 2

We finish our coverage of Lafcadio Hearn’s tales from ghostly Japan with three more stories: “The Corpse-Rider” from the book Shadowings and “Jiu-Roku-Zakura” and “A Dead Secret” from Kwaidan.
Music and Audio production by Bob Familiar.Read by Bob Familiar, Jim Billbrough, and Special Guest Narrator Rick Weidner.

Lafcadio Hearn, Stories from “Kwaidan” & “In Ghostly Japan,” Vol. 1

  We return to the works of Lafcadio Hearn with the first of two full length episodes of strange and unusual stories from his adopted country of Japan.
 “Diplomacy” and “Riki Baka” from the book “Kwaidan” and “Fragment” from “In Ghostly Japan”
We also introduce a new reader, Rick Weidner, who provides some much-needed low end to the narrations.
Music and Audio Production by Bob Familiar
Read by Bob Familiar, Jim Billbrough, and Rick Weidner
 
 
 

The Reconciliation by Lafcadio Hearn

We start our second season with a short story about love, loss, and the potential supernatural repercussions to procrastination. “The Reconciliation” by Lafcadio Hearn from his book “Shadowings.”
Music and Audio Production by Bob Familiar
Read by Jim Billbrough
 
Ambient Arcana would like to dedicate this episode to our good friend Gabrielle Agachiko who passed away last month. Gabrielle was a wonderful singer with a powerful voice and an irrepressible personality. We had been planning to have her read for the podcast, particularly the parts that called for goddess level intensity, but unfortunately fate stepped in. She was deeply loved by many and will be dearly missed. Hopefully we will meet her again in the next incarnation, if such things are possible.

Two Tibetan Folktales by A.L. Shelton

Gifts? Check!
Visits from distant relatives? Check!
A Christmas ghost story? Check!
Our last episode of season one features two stories from A.L. Shelton’s 1925 collection of “Tibetan Folktales” :
“The Man And The Ghost” & “Story Of A Juggler’s Tricks”
Music and Audio Production by Bob Familiar.
Narration by Jim Billbrough & Bob Familiar.
Recorded Live (more or less) at Sounds Familiar Studios

In the Court of the Dragon by Robert W. Chambers

A Demonic Organist! Random Time Displacement! Interdimensional Church Services! A full on Carcosa Mythos story - “In the Court of the Dragon”, from “The King in Yellow”by Robert W. Chambers.
Reading by Jim Billbrough
Music and Audio Production by Bob Familiar
All Music used in this episode was by Man Tray
Please consider supporting Ambient Arcana on Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/ambientarcana?fan_landing=true&view_as=public

The Street of the Four Winds by Robert Chambers

We take a look at the world of R.W. Chambers with a somewhat beige story from "The King in Yellow" called "The Street of The Four Winds". A story about love, loss, and the vagaries of cat ownership. An extra long episode with a  pretty beefy bio and a bonus story snippet at the end.
Music and Audio Production by Bob Familiar, Narration and Bio by Jim Billbrough. The poem introducing the story was read by Mandy Familiar.
Please consider supporting Ambient Arcana on Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/ambientarcana?fan_landing=true&view_as=public

Uncle Abraham’s Romance by Edith Nesbit

 This is a bonus episode of Ambient Arcana featuring a very short story about young love, lonely churchyards, and the unspeakable horror of 18th century miniature portrait art - "Uncle Abraham's Romance" by Edith Nesbit. Read by Jim Billbrough, Music and Audio Production by Bob Familiar.