- Feb 12
I'm so excited to announce that the tarot deck is nearly finished!
After 3+ years, I'm very nearly ready to publish my tarot deck! It's been an insane amount of work, and I feel like I've grown substantially as a visual artist from completing this project. I've talked before on this blog about how interesting and new this process has been for me. Starting from a fully realized image and set of themes and finding a way to re-interpret the core of that idea into my own image has been very difficult and at times un-natural for me (with a background as a visual artist, working primarily from observation). Finding myself as an illustrator has been a process, but I think it turned out quite well!
I've shared the project with a few friends I have who are interested in Tarot, and they were very excited about how the deck turned out.
I've done a few readings with it, and I was delighted and a bit surprised to discover how different it felt to actually read with these cards. Changing the suits and adding my own subtext to them added a new dimension that can be used in a reading that I don't think I fully understood or expected when I was making it. I'm very glad to see how well the cards work, and to see first hand that they have the capacity to do what tarot does.
The time and energy it took to complete this project rivals that of my first album. 😅 I'm proud that I actually managed to accomplish it. I admit that when I started I didn't know if this project would end up seeing the light of day- but with the support of my friends, I was able to make steady progress and reach milestones one by one until the deck started to take shape.
I'm extremely excited to start releasing this deck into the world! The plan for now is to sell them online through my merch store, (or etsy, tbd), and to sell them in person at live shows <3 No final decision on the price yet, but I want very much to make sure it's affordable for everyone who wants one. I also plan to upload the digital compositions to a section of my website sometime later this year, so everyone can see the cards without paying anything if they so desire.
This week, I've been putting the finishing touches on the box and comparing various printing and distribution companies. I have received a few samples from distrubtors already, but so far all were either too expensive to produce at scale, or too low-quality to feel good about. I think I finally found a production facility I like, but I'll know for sure once I get the samples back in the next couple weeks!
Till then! <3
- Feb 6
2025 was a huge year for me in music! I'll be the first to admit I've been slacking on my social media, but my live show has come a LONG way in the last few months. It's hard to believe that a year ago I was still playing in Nafan's Freakshow at The Outpost 😅 ! I really appreciated that experience- because it gave me so many chances to learn and grow as a performer. Frankly, I think everyone who wants to make live music has to accept that they need to spend a healthy amount of time sucking for one reason or another- then figuring out what those reasons are, and fixing them <3 that's part of maturing as an artist, and I can think of no better place to have (hopefully) moved through that experience than the stage Nafan provides at The Freakshow. Last Summer I started experimenting with a livecoding platform called Strudel! I became aware of it at the perfect time for me- after I had just spent a few weeks making (long overdue) written transcriptions of some of my songs that I thought had potential to be good live.
As I learned Strudel, I realized I could actually showcase so much more of the digital stuff I do in a way that was honest and presentable, and that changed EVERYTHING. Thanks to Strudel's highlight feature, suddenly had a way to showcase a MIX as it was happening in real time. I could finally embrace "backtracking" in a way that doesn't feel as cheap and disconnected as it has always looked to me.
So I made a big move- and bought a projector, a screen, and couple REALLY BIG speakers. This made all the difference. Suddenly, I could actually practice my own live sound and figure out what worked and what didn't! Balancing volume and EQ in real space is a tricky thing! It changes the sound quite a bit, and I do not envy the job of actual live-sound-engineers at all 😅 But having the right tools allowed me to practice *preforming* in a way that was previously impossible. Once I realized the potential for Strudel to handle nearly all the electronic sounds in a way that felt satisfying and took them out of my hands- I realized I was free to play and not worry about constructing the song so much. I took out my electric guitar and started writing parts that would feel exciting to listen to, and give me a tool to express. There's a reason rockstars mostly play lead guitar and vocal. It just works. You can do a lot with those tools- they feel very human, they have a large variety of sonic capabilities, and they look good. I told a couple friends I wanted to maybe do a live show and they offered to let me set something up at their new house- so I spent a few months practicing my butt off, and making a live set with strudel and electric guitar that I could feel satisfied with... and it went well! Not the best show of all time- but overall I'm really proud of what I was able to do! I feel so excited to keep performing- I have so much momentum! So a few months later, I did another little show for some friends at new years, and that went well too! I was talking about this live music adventure I've been on with some friends at a party around Christmas, and my friend Devin floated the idea that I might be able to open for their band sometime- Of course I said yes! ... and now it's really happening! I'm officially opening for The Village Bicycle at The Little Rose in Cleveland on April 4th - and I'm beyond excited! In other news, I've made HUGE progress on the Tarot deck in the last year! The card illustrations and backs are DONE! ❤️ I should be releasing it sometime in 2026! I'm so excited to have this project nearly complete and ready to share with the world. It was a huge undertaking, and it's been a hell of a journey, artistically. I feel like I've grown a lot in a new direction as an image-maker, and I'm excited about the future of my art! I hope to have the a section on my website about this project, soon, too! So stay tuned for that! Marn Labs and the custom knobs project has been going well too! I got a new synth for Christmas (called the Studiologic Sledge) with a larger front panel that has TONS of room for fancy knobs and stuff. I've spent the last few weeks diving deep into sketchup and making elaborate gear systems that allow for different axes of movement as control. It's really cool stuff! I hope to make another post in more detail soon! 🥰
That new synth has also given me fantastic new options for visualization in Touchdesigner! I've embarked on the painstaking process of re-mapping the synths controls 1-1 in a way that ties every aspect of the sound to a satisfying visual effect. It's going well, but there's still a long way to go. More updates on that sometime this year, too.
I've been writing a lot of music over the last year, but most of my energy has been spent getting things ready for live-shows rather than recording and mixing new songs. I've definitely fallen behind on my recording, but I feel more capable than ever as a technical musician, and that makes the recording process much easier. I'm excited to start recording and mixing again once I get the chance, but that's probably not my main priority at the moment. 2026 is shaping up to be another big year for me creatively/professionally. I have a lot to look forward to, and things are really picking up! I'm so excited 🥰
- Feb 13, 2025
My focus for the last several months has been continuing to work on live show material. There have been many ups and downs, and the concept of a show continues to evolve.
I've switched from Reaper to Ableton Live for running things on stage. So far, the experience has been much smoother. The MIDI interface of Live is especially convenient for routing multiple devices and synthesizers with external effects, etc... All these things can be done with Reaper, but it's been much faster and more obvious to find solutions in Ableton. It feels more deliberately designed for you to use MIDI in the way I am currently exploring.
I've also started learning TouchDesigner to work on new types of motion/light to visualize synth controls. MIDI CC data can be mapped to various parameters inside TouchDesigner to modulate a visual output. The application seems very robust... and I've barely scratched the surface, but my experimenting has gone well! I hope to bring something from TouchDesigner with me to my next show.
As much as I love the idea of making physical devices that work with CV signals, working with MIDI + light/ projectors via my computer seems like a much less expensive and perhaps equally natural, obvious way to visualize the modulation of sound sources. Ultimately, I hope to use this as a way to learn/ experiment with different types of movement that I might someday translate into a physical device.
I've spent a lot of time on all of this over the last few months. Sometimes, I find myself drifting away from the point a bit. As much fun as it can be to dive into wonky technical problems, I need to remember that such problems can be as endless as they are superfluous. The goal of any live show should be to create an experience that supports and presents the music- not distracts. As much as I aspire to create something interesting and new to show, the artistic, aesthetic, and emotional experience that the totality of the work creates for the audience is what matters. The tools I create are useless (even if they technically work) if they don't mean something in the context they are used.