David Thrussell & Shinjuku Thief release ‘The Call of Cthulhu’ on Metropolis Records
Australian musicians David Thrussell and Darrin Verhagen, working together as David Thrussell & Shinjuku Thief, release “The Call of Cthulhu” on June 19, 2026 via Metropolis Records. The spoken-word album is a retelling of H. P. Lovecraft’s 1928 short story, issued as a deluxe 2xLP, with a digital edition to follow.
The album sets Lovecraft’s story to a soundtrack, narrated by Thrussell with music by Verhagen. It follows the structure of the original text in three parts: “The Horror in Clay,” “The Tale of Inspector Legrasse” and “The Madness from the Sea.” Thrussell has worked with Lovecraft source material before: in 2025 he released a Lovecraft-themed record with Flint Glass on Ant-Zen, as reported by Side-Line.
“The Call of Cthulhu” is released as a deluxe 2xLP on “crushed bone” colour vinyl, with original artwork by Richard Grant (I+T=R). A digital release will follow, with no date confirmed for it at the time of writing.
About H. P. Lovecraft’s ‘The Call of Cthulhu’
“The Call of Cthulhu” by H.P. Lovecraft is a 1928 horror story that pioneered “cosmic horror”. It follows an investigator piecing together clues about a terrifying, ancient, octopus-dragon-human hybrid entity and its global cult, exploring the psychological devastation of humanity when confronted with unimaginable, alien powers.
The story is told as a nested mystery through the notes of Francis Wayland Thurston, and is broken into three main parts:
1. The Horror in Clay
The story opens in 1926 with Thurston investigating the estate of his late great-uncle. He discovers a bas-relief sculpture created by a local artist named Henry Wilcox. The sculpture depicts a grotesque, tentacled monster that Wilcox made while experiencing feverish dreams of cyclopean cities and monstrous monoliths. Thurston connects this artifact to similar strange reports and ancient voodoo cults, discovering that people around the world are sharing nightmares about this being: Cthulhu.
2. The Swamp Cult
Thurston learns about a New Orleans police raid on an isolated, swamp-dwelling cult in 1907. The police uncovered horrifying rituals and human sacrifices. The cultists worshipped “The Great Old Ones,” ancient, alien beings who ruled the earth ages ago and are now sleeping beneath the sea. They chant the infamous phrase: “In his house at R’lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming.”
3. The Sunken City and the Sea
The narrative shifts to a manuscript written by a Norwegian sailor, Gustaf Johansen. Months earlier, his ship was chased and attacked by a mysterious vessel. Johansen and his surviving crew landed on a bizarre, uncharted volcanic island in the South Pacific. They unwittingly discovered the sunken, geometric nightmare-city of R’lyeh. After stepping on the island, they accidentally awakened Cthulhu. The entity slaughtered the crew before Johansen managed to ram Cthulhu with his ship, temporarily breaking apart the creature’s formless, regenerating body long enough to escape.
About David Thrussell & Shinjuku Thief
David Thrussell is an Australian musician and composer based in Melbourne. He co-founded the industrial and electronic project Snog in 1989 with Tim McGrath and Julia Bourke, and went on to run the related projects Black Lung, formed in 1994, and Soma.
Shinjuku Thief is the project of Australian musician and soundtrack composer Darrin Verhagen. It began in 1992 as a trio of Verhagen with Charles TĂ©taz and François TĂ©taz, taking its name from Nagisa Oshima’s film “Diary of a Shinjuku Thief,” and worked in a dark ambient and cinematic style, with several records conceived as soundtracks to imagined films. Verhagen released much of the project’s catalogue on his own Dorobo label and later through Projekt, alongside work for theatre, dance and film and a teaching post at RMIT University.
“The Call of Cthulhu” is the first release credited to David Thrussell & Shinjuku Thief.
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