--- title: Book of Sarth description: Book of Sarth, the iPad gralbum Sarth Calhoun spent two and a half years making: a graphic novel and a concept album running as one work. url: https://www.sarth.net/conspiracies/book-of-sarth/ published: 2012 facet: dream credit: Sarth Calhoun wrote and recorded the music of *The Book of Sarth* and built the app with Andrew Beck, Elik Smith, Leah Coloff and Jacob McCoy; released 2012 through The Gralbum Collective. author: Sarth Calhoun --- [Conspiracies](/conspiracies/) / Book of Sarth Conspiracy · Dream # Book of Sarth Book of Sarth is an iPad app that runs a graphic novel and a concept album as one work. I wrote and recorded the music, built the app with four collaborators, and released it in 2012. I call the form a gralbum, graphic novel plus album, and Book of Sarth was the first one. It lives at [bookofsarth.com](https://bookofsarth.com). The story is about an ear worm. Tapping an image opens the director’s view, where the artwork fills the screen and the reader stands where the characters are. From the Book: “They were born into a boxy and barren world . . .” ![Artwork from The Book of Sarth, colour rain.](/images/book-of-sarth-color-rain.jpg) From The Book of Sarth. ![Cover art of The Book of Sarth: a crowd under drones, one sign reading Isn't it time u started listening?](/images/bos-cover.jpg) Cover art, *The Book of Sarth*. ## What I wrote when it shipped 2.5 years in the making. my first full-length solo release. plus a platform for releasing music and interactive art in a new way. Andrew Beck was amazing. Elik Smith is a genius. [Leah Coloff](/conspirators/leah-coloff/) is a force of nature. Jacob McCoy is unstoppable. Together we made this. ## The gralbum From the biography on my old site: Currently, Sarth is inventing a new medium called the gralbum (graphic+album) to combine his lifelong love of music with his mistress, graphic novels. The premiere gralbum is The Book of Sarth, available for download at the iTunes store. This will be the first of many releases from the Gralbum Collective, formed to house more of his collaborative creations and help other artists produce similar works. The Gralbum Collective launched at the SOHO Gallery for Digital Arts on April 9, 2014. [Laughing Squid](https://laughingsquid.com/gralbum-an-ipad-app-that-turns-records-into-a-multimedia-experience/) covered it the day before; [*Stereophile*](https://www.stereophile.com/content/gralbum-re-thinking-concept-album) wrote it up two weeks later. Leah Coloff released a gralbum of her own through it. ![Artwork from The Book of Sarth: a circle of people meditating in a warehouse under a rainbow.](/images/meditation-room.jpg) From *The Book of Sarth*. > The app format seems like a completely new medium to work in. Music always needs a new medium, because it’s always changing. I think if music doesn’t have technology on its side, it tends to have the problem of where to go, it starts to run out of steam. > > Sarth Calhoun, [Tumblr Storyboard, January 2013](https://web.archive.org/web/20140812122953/http://storyboard.tumblr.com/post/41358319321/the-book-of-sarth-an-interactive-cyberpunk-tale) ## The music The score was made with [Kyma](/devices/). One of its pieces, [“Awakening (To Blacklist)”](/conspiracies/awakening-to-blacklist/), was built out of 60-cycle hum. A record, [*Transmissions from the Book of Sarth*](/transmissions/transmissions-from-the-book-of-sarth/), followed in 2013. The credit: Sarth Calhoun wrote and recorded the music of *The Book of Sarth* and built the app with Andrew Beck, Elik Smith, Leah Coloff and Jacob McCoy; released 2012 through The Gralbum Collective. ## What was written about it [Symbolic Sound](https://news.symbolicsound.com/2012/11/the-book-of-sarth/) wrote about it in November 2012: a narrative about an ear worm that is, itself, an ear worm! The Book of Sarth is the first example of an entirely new art form for the early 21st century. [Gizmodo](https://gizmodo.com/tabletop-translator-book-of-sarth-and-more-5970597) put it in Apps of the Week that December. Bryan Bishop reviewed it for [The Verge](https://www.theverge.com/2013/1/3/3828314/the-book-of-sarth-ipad-app-graphic-novel-concept-album) on January 3, 2013: Things really come alive in what’s called the ‘director’s view’: tap an image and the artwork fills the screen, putting the reader in the same place as the characters. He also wrote that Calhoun’s music is no doubt experimental, but his tracks and the artwork play nimbly off one another. [Vogue Italia](https://www.vogue.it/people-are-talking-about/vogue-arts/2013/09/app-musicali) ran it in a September 2013 piece on music apps: Chi invece è riuscito a coniare un nuovo concetto di ‘album musicale’ è Sarth Calhoun con il suo sorprendente The Book of Sarth. [Chain D.L.K.](https://www.chaindlk.com/reviews/7353) gave it a mixed review. The rest is on [Rumors](/rumors/). ![Artwork from The Book of Sarth: a man on a cell bunk surrounded by handwritten signs.](/images/sarth-prison-cell.jpg) From *The Book of Sarth*. My account is from the Book of Sarth page and the biography of my old WordPress site, recovered from the Wayback Machine.