Samhain: Meditations on the Vale

I wrote about my project to put together a mix for each sabbat. My Samhain mix is live.

I'm very pleased about this mix. It's intended as a meditation to let us lose ourselves in the music as we struggle with death and the darker aspects of the cycle of life. Our struggle with loss and our own mortality is acknowledged. However, we're invited to consider what it will be like to approach the vale with acceptance and understand it as a natural phase along with the rest of the wheel. Once we are in harmony with the dark, we can connect with our ancestors.

Musically this may be the most varied mix I will produce. The songs that have been most influential in my own connection to the vale do not come from the electronic canon that I've been using for my other work. Yet the story they tell is critical to an approach to the vale. So, I faced the challenge of widening the music I drew from. The electronic sounds are there; I'm still following my goal of showing the parallels between the modern and the primal. However, I've reached beyond that to open and close the set.

I'm proud of the advances I've made with a DJ. Things felt more natural to produce, and I'm pleased with the results. I focused on managing the energy much more explicitly. When I danced through my final review, I definitely succeeded in losing myself in the music.