Black Satellite

On October 12th 2020,  I awoke from a nightmare that contained so much detail, so many emotions, such strange pseudo-worldly vistas and ambiances and such an overarching feeling of solitude that it shook me to my core. It was as if I had spent days within a world that may or may not exist, and yet even when exposed to the horror that was not just the end of the dream but also the world itself, I found myself simply lying down, opening my eyes as if I had left one life to continue another.

This nightmare is the core inspiration for Black Satellite, the driving force that kept my hands to the keys and my head amongst the stars, and along the way I would find myself refining and exploring the distinct feeling I wanted to express with these pieces. The art of this album was done by the amazing Mantis (@mantissweatshop) with satellite codes and ominous repeated phrases scattered around the beautifully broken linework that's reminiscent of both high arcana and soviet era imagery.

The nightmare begins at the western edge of a clearing in a forest on a mountain.


Tall, dark pine trees stretch for an unknown distance in every direction from the clearing, into the grey, cloudy expanse of the mountain. The grass is a short and messy menagerie of different shrubs and weeds lightly coated in snow and water from the condensation of the atmosphere. The clearing resembles an elongated diamond shape, like a wound in the hillside. At the west, a sleek black train arrives on a track that just barely graces the edge of the clearing, allowing me to step out not onto a platform but instead onto the grassy frost-coated ground cover, my boots making a satisfying crunch as they make contact. With the train now silent and still behind me, I venture forward across that grassy clearing. Step by step, I move through to the opposite side of the clearing, attempting to keep my elevation level as I pass a small knoll supported by stray pines in the middle of the clearing. It is at the east where I find the object of my search, dug and recessed into the ground as if it were a natural formation lay a pool of blood, approximately 10 meters diameter and an unknown (but undoubtedly impressive) depth. The wind caused thick ripples in the deep red pond, and the call of the void compelled me to test the depth of this pool myself... but my investigation was yet to be concluded.

Roughly two meters north of the horrific pool lay an old fashioned flip phone, open on the grass and connected to someone on the other side. Upon inspection, it became intuitively clear to me that this other side was much more literal; the voice of a dead man talked through the speaker, retelling a story of his relationship with his wife and his neglect to maintain it in favor of pursuing his scientific studies. He spoke with a deliberate, clinical tone yet with occasional hints of remorse or reluctance. This phone is something I would take with me as I returned to the train across the clearing, as I believed it may be pertinent to my investigation, and useful to have a contact on the Other Side.

My memories continue with my departure from the train and my exploration of an industrial district reminiscent of Victorian era England, tall ornate buildings, warehouses and billowing smokestacks dominating the atmosphere as I found myself wandering a suburb that felt all too similar to my own neighborhood. Despite the impressive architecture, the billowing of smoke and the ambiance of machinery in the distance, it was clear that there was no one in sight. The district was abandoned. Entering the building that should have been my own house, I found myself in the corrupted laboratory of the dead man, pulsating black sinew creeping and stretching across corridors and surfaces like a system of veins. I did my best to evade contact with the alien black matter, but once I arrived at the central office I found the door blocked by stringy black flesh that I was forced to move if I wanted to progress. Severing the strands with nothing but the opening of the door triggered some sort of reaction that I could feel deep inside was a terrible mistake. The office was strewn with sinew, leading primarily from a picture frame on the desk, containing a grayed photograph of the dead man and his wife, though even in the photo neither look particularly happy, instead wearing blank, haunting faces. I had only a moment to examine the photograph before I felt the very earth beneath me shift, and a single thought entered my mind: Cataclysm.

I rushed back through the sinew filled hallway, through the district and onto the train that departed for the clearing once again, but my arrival would not be as peaceful as it was before. The train derailed as it was travelling, crashing down onto its side and coming to a halt in the dirt and grass of the clearing. Shaken from the crash, I found myself crawling out of the wrecked car and falling onto the grass, only to find the very ground beneath me pulling my body across the clearing. I watched as the texture beneath me shifted and warped, pulling me toward that horrible pool of blood in the distance. The sky above me was no longer the cloudy day I remembered, the sky shifting to a sinister cloudy red as an awakening of something truly horrible began to take place. Like a scrambling unwilling sacrifice I was pulled closer and closer to the restless blood until I was about 12 meters away, at which point it was the end. I witnessed as the sky cracked with thunder and a colossal tongue erupted from the blood, piercing high into the sky with a deafening, alien screech...

And then it was over.


I awoke calmly, laying on my side in my bed with memories of a vision that shook me so deeply to my core it would be a tragedy not to record it, to recreate it. With reverence, I let this nightmare posses me and through it, I would pay homage to the horror I witnessed.