The Goblet of Shock
By Michael Aronovitz
Horror Author, College Professor, and Rock Columnist
Matt Henshaw, of Pentameth Demon, is a fascinating artist, writer, and musician who has made steps to merge heavy music with heavy weird fiction in ways that literally make me jealous. Besides loving metal for most of my life, I started writing rock articles for the specific purpose of widening my readership (and hopefully my appeal) for my horror stories. This column is a result of that experiment as you can see! Honestly, I don’t know if I ever sold even one more copy of my books as a result of volunteering to review music, but I have met or spoken to a shitload of awesome people like Keith Clement who runs this magazine. Frank Bello of Anthrax sent me a video hello on my birthday this year because I wrote a horror novella starring him and his band mates for Pure Grain Audio Magazine. It was cool and I know it sounds awkward and conceited to drop names so shamelessly, but I’m talking FRANK BELLO! So. To review. Did I become a millionaire merging horror and metal? No. Did I allow myself to indulge in one love (metal) while sharpening my craft (horror writing) in another? Ab-so-fucking-lutely.
To the point, Matt Henshaw has a similar, but far superior vision when it comes to this hybrid. Best to let him explain it himself. He has inserted a bunch of fascinating links, and I felt it best to leave them embedded in his section than lump them at the end. Check this out:
My name is Matt Henshaw (he/him) and I have been a musician in one form or another for about 30 years. Over time, I have moved from guitar to electronic MIDI based music. I currently release music under my own name and a “band” called Pentameth Demon. As time has gone on, the style of music I play has also evolved from jazz/rock to darker ambient style music inspired by drone metal like Sunn o))) and Boris. Pentameth Demon releases tend to be long-form, and the latest release,
Xargropthist, is perhaps the culmination of the dark ambient style for me. I am also influenced by Italian Gialo soundtracks, and I recently released a soundtrack to an imaginary horror film under my own name called Il Burattino Di Velluto Del Diavolo. I also did an audio production of
The Red Laugh by Leonid Andreyev, a war-horror work from the early 1900’s which incorporates atmospherics along with the reading. I would love to work with more horror authors on audio productions of their work. Sales of my work on Bandcamp get donated to charity, and I enjoy hearing what people think of my music. I have been delighted to make friendships with other musicians and authors who have been so supportive and encouraging of my work. I am currently working on a collection to be released in 2022 of horror/weird writing called “Black Ribbon and Other Perturbed Textiles”, and working on content/editing for a chapbook from Madness Heart Press that will take the form of a college course catalog for an evil university. I will also be a part of a compilation coming out from Justin Burnett (of Silent Motorist Media) called The Red Tower Collective which combines weird authors with dark ambient musicians (https://redtowercollective.wordpress.com/) If you’re an author interested in collaborating with me, I would be delighted to meet via email and Zoom to discuss ideas.
I would like to someday collaborate with this artist, and as we move to the back porch for a glass or two of suds, I want to take the opportunity to discuss my fourth novel coming out September 7th from Night Shade / Skyhorse Books. It is my best and my bloodiest, so I hope you might be interested in the pre-order info.
https://www.skyhorsepublishing.com/9781949102543/the-sculptor/
