Cloven Hoof Press was founded in 1999 as a celebration of the Angel of Light via the “Black Art” of letterpress printing.

Our latest publication, Spells from the Shadows, is a new book of recorder duets composed by CRONE. The Spellbook contains 33 soprano and/or tenor duets designed for intermediate to advanced beginners.

These melancholic, ethereal tunes are appropriate for Goths, Metalheads, and other disaffected malcontents disillusioned with the usual chipper, upbeat tunes featured in most beginning recorder books.

CRONE’s somber melodies are intended to be performed by candlelight on the winter solstice, when the night is long and the veil between the living and the dead has worn thin. 

The Spellbook is beautifully engraved by Wobbly Constant, with a handful of appropriately medieval illustrations. It features larger notes designed to facilitate reading, either by children or by readers of a certain age, such as CRONE herself, whose eyesight has grown dim with the passing years.

Who is CRONE, you may ask? She is an ephemeral, liminal being, perhaps a product of sorcery, perhaps merely a chimera. Does she exist? Perhaps.

These tunes may or may not conjure up a demon or two. Play at your own risk!