Better known for innovations in electronic music, Louis and Bebe Barron first recorded and edited in the late 1940s several authors reading their own works. In 2009, in the aftermath of Bebe’s passing, Nin scholar Steven Reigns loaned me the rare vinyl LP shown below, featuring Anaïs Nin’s passionate reading of her own prose poem fantasy, and the challenge to release it on CD.
Barron Sound Portraits, working in conjunction with the Anaïs Nin Trust, is pleased to our release of, Anaïs Nin reads ‘House of Incest’, unabridged, on CD. The main them of the poem is metaphorical incest. As quoted in the poem, “If only we could all escape from this house of incest, where we only love ourselves in the other . . .” The vivid poetry, inspired by Nin’s dreams and psychoanalysis, takes the narrator from euphoria to despair and onto a surrealist psychological journey. At one point the narrator realizes, “Worlds self-made and self-nourished are so full of ghosts and monsters.” The 64-minute CD holds up to multiple listenings, with the poetry, imagery, passion and performance becoming more enjoyable each time.
In agreement with the Nin Trust, I am donating all profits to UNICEF. I think Anaïs would approve, having had pure artistic motives, a basic goodness, no children, but a worldwide vision. As you visit the website, please take time to listen to the sample audio tracks, which give the extraordinary flavor of Nin’s performance. – Adam Barron, son of Louis and Bebe.
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© 2012, Barron Sound Portraits