Tarot Tape I marks the first true chapter in an ongoing series of musical explorations inspired by the symbolic mythology of Tarot.
Each Tarot Tape is a mixtape-style EP, acting as both a standalone listening experience and a rough draft for a future, fully realized Tarot LP. There are 26 planned volumes in this series, each shaped by a unique trio of Tarot cards—one Major Arcana, followed by two Minor Arcana. The cards drawn for each volume are more than just a theme; they guide my creative process, shaping the structure, tone, and emotional current of the music itself. While Volume 0 served as a prologue and proof of concept, this release is where the experiment properly begins.
Every EP in this series is based on a three-card Tarot reading. This is to create a set creative constraint and a lay foundation for experimentation in composition and sound design. This series leans into an impressionistic, atmospheric approach to electronic music: moody, textural, and driven by intuition rather than rigid structure. I often have a difficult time applying a genre to my tracks, and the Tarot experiment in particular may be an appropriate time to be less concerned with genre than other musical descriptions. It is my hope with this series that each volume and each track will have a different feel from all the other works in the series. I view this series of releases as a space to explore and develop artistically.
This series a place for musical play and experimentation within the structure of conceptualization. Over the course of production, each of these pieces becomes personally meaningful to me, as over time they become an instrumental mediation on my own life and experiences. Through Tarot we are meant to surmise a practical or spiritual connection with the archetypes of our reading. And so inevitably the work I create in this series becomes quite personal and introspective to me. Each session, working on a track is a return to a nest of personal thoughts, sentiments, and experiences.
This too is why Tarot archetypes struck me as the perfect vehicle for prompting this experiment. Each card and it's associated archetype is empirically different. As a set, they are intended to be conceptually all-encompassing. This gives me an opportunity to break out of my comfort zone with each track, exploring new sounds, styles, and ways of creating.
The Magician
Focused intent, resourcefulness, and the spark that turns ideas into reality. The Magician channels creative will and the internal alchemy of shaping the intangible into the tangible.
To me, this track is a narrative about crossing an endless ocean. The world around us is a sea of possibilities: vast, beautiful, and sometimes overwhelming. When we create, our works are the vessels we build to traverse it. Each new creation is a ship assembled from the driftwood of stray ideas, developing skills, and impulse, lashed together by determination and curiosity.
Climb Aboard, I'll Take You There
We share a part of ourselves in the things that we make. Our creations are the boat. Imagination is the water. The voyage always begins with something unshaped, a spark waiting to become real. When we create, we extend an invitation to act as a ferryman - offering passage through our own perceptions and imagination.
Prima Materia
We Still Have Further to Go
Art is never truly complete in the eyes of it's creator. It can only ever exist as a single version of itself. As an audience, we can experience it only as it is. As an idea grows beyond a spark, clarity dissolves and the work becomes something unknown. For the artist, creation always carries the weight of imagining all the endless ways it could have been.
Nigredo
When We Get Where We're Going
A sense of purpose and direction materializes out of endless possibility. We're never truly done learning, but there is a somber finality in calling our creations 'complete'. A struggle exists between the creative's desire for growth and the act of critiquing what was just called finished. There’s a kind of quiet sadness in letting go, knowing there will always be more we could do.
Albedo
Halcyon
Conversely, when we're able to distance ourselves from what we create and see our growth from a bird's eye view, there is a sense of joy and excitement for whatever is possible next. Night fades to day, warming everything with a golden clarity that was previously obscured. We celebrate when we grow, and look forward with hopeful anticipation to new places yet to be seen.
Citrinitas
There It Is, Out on the Horizon
Sometimes the current of creating gently carries us to exciting new places. Sometimes we are thrashed by powerful waves, and making new work is our escape from the storm. In the end, we might spot distant shores that look like home. But sometimes home is the horizon of a new and empty ocean in the morning light.
Always moving forward toward a new horizon reminds us that the act of creating is, in itself, a kind of magic. Through creating, we are also changing ourselves into something new.
Rubedo
Nine of Cups
The “wish fulfilled” card, signifying satisfaction, gratitude, and emotional reward. This piece moves through moments of contentment and quiet reflection, but also explores the complexities that follow fulfillment. Sometimes gratitude manifests as a quiet and somber meditation. A moment to reflect in the majesty of the good things in our lives. And sometimes taking it all in feels like reeling at the center of a mirthful party.
Two of Pentacles
Balance, flexibility, and adaptation in the face of change. This track weaves cyclical rhythms and shifting motifs, echoing the ongoing act of juggling priorities and staying afloat amidst life’s changes. Gratitude can create a sense of balance. But true adaptation often emerges from the friction of testing our limits. Are we meant to lean back and savor the comfort of equilibrium? Or does real growth come from stretching ourselves outward toward physical, mental, and creative expansion?
Resource Pack
As with every Tarot Tape, this volume includes a bonus resource pack—patches, samples, and production tools created during the writing process—available both as a standalone download on Gumroad and included with the Bandcamp release. Tarot Tape I includes a 16-patch bank for Arturia Pigments that contains 16 patches from the 3 tracks contained in this volume.
The support and encouragement of my friends and fellow musicians fuels and endless desire to continue creating and improving with you all. Thank you for listening. Special thanks to, John B, Mark H, Cameron for their input and feedback during development. And thank you to Anthony and all of my friends at Seed to Stage for keeping me on my toes - inspired and always learning.
Mastered by Matthew Hayter
