Every generation, it seems, crazy conspiracy theories are embraced by a sizable segment of the populace. From the Salem Witch Trials to QAnon nuttiness, the oft-recycled ideas trample reason not because they offer easy answers to complex issues, though sometimes they do, but because they help believers deal with their fears about the ever-changing world in which we’re living. Such was the case during the 1980s, when a suspect book penned by a psychiatrist and his future wife, a former patient no less, fueled a decade-long crusade targeting supposed child-abusing devil worshippers that, as with all cultish claims, became more outlandish the longer it lasted.
One result: innocents were routinely targeted with the “recovered memories” often drawn from such films as Rosemary’s Baby, The Exorcist and The Omen. (I’d wager the drive-in favorite Race With the Devil inspired some of those claims, too.)
Another result: Folksinger Carolyn Kendrick’s Each Machine, which mines that Satanic panic and others for inspiration. The LP mixes traditional and newer folksongs drawn from hymns, murder ballads, pagan chants, and—yes—devil worship to expound on the cyclical nature of such movements. Interspersed throughout are audio vérité snippets of Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders quoting the Bible (“In the beginning, God created the heaven the Earth…”) and others, including President Reagan’s “Evil Empire” speech and Russell H. Conwell’s “Acres of Diamonds” sermon. It’s a mesmerizing listen.
Highlights include “Leela,” drawn from a Nepalese folk song, the medieval lullaby “Sumer (Sing Cuckoo),” which features a wealth of intertwined harmonies, and the closing “A Perfect World,” which was inspired by David Keig’s poem, “The Devil is in Me.” “Are You Washed in the Blood” appears twice in different contexts, each as hypnotic as the other.
Prior to launching her solo career in 2020, Kendrick was half of the Austin-based Page Turners duo. She’s also accompanied a slew of folky-flavored Americana artists on tour, including Aoife O’Donovan and Margo Price.
The project, for those curious, was inspired by a job she took during the pandemic to fill the financial gap she faced from not being able to tour: podcast producer, researcher and writer. She dove headfirst into the work, which included learning about all things Beelzebub, and connected the dots between the “moral panics” of the past to those of the present. (For more, see her write-up on the album’s Bandcamp page.)
The Old Grey Cat 
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