Black Tapestry: Goth Creatives From Sedona!

Instagram: @black.tapestry https://www.facebook.com/black.tapestry

https://www.blacktapestrymusic.com Rated: E for Entrancing! Feature credit: Jay Shelley

When I was introduced to Black Tapestry, I found myself enthralled and captivated. Their blend of melodic instrumentals paired with hypnotic vocals lured its way into my soul and took me on a journey though the mind. You instantly get captured by the soothingly ominous tone that gives a feel of genuine comfort. Combine this with graceful vocals that wash over you. These artists from Sedona AZ are one to keep your gaze on. I, for one, am impatiently waiting to hear more from this talented group.

---

We have been making music together for 20 years (as long as we have known each other).

Several hobby projects have cycled through that time. As the pandemic pushed the world into

seclusion, an urge to bring our collective creative voice forward to express the grievances of the modern human experience and the near constant underestimation of natures power. Living in Sedona has been a big influence for us. Aside from being beautiful, there is so much about the desert landscape that highlights the disparity between the natural order and society in its current state. This paradox informs a lot of our creative choices. Musically, we also find inspiration from classic goth and post-punk bands like The Cure, Bauhaus, and Fugazi, and electronic acts like The Prodigy, Depeche Mode and Gary Numan. The resurgence of new goth, post-punk and electronic music has been amazing and really inspiring. It's been great to share the stage with the new wave of these sounds, including Phoenix locals like Some Days Are Darker, Rare Kreature and Details of Eating, and touring acts like VOSH, Public Memory and Vulture Feather.

Our biggest hurdle has been our location. Not living in a community with a large audience for

original music has been challenging. While we do play occasionally in our area, we play most of our shows in the Phoenix metro, which is two hours away at best, so we travel a lot to play and see shows. Making connections and establishing a base in a city we don't live in has been challenging, but we now know many talented artists and have played many venues, so we feel like a part of the Phoenix music scene by proxy.

The entire process has been a perpetual learning experience, from gear choices, recording

practices, community building, booking, promotion, visual design, budgeting, and everything else in

between being an independent musician. Aside from just making music, we didn’t realize how much

goes into being a band and creative project outside of creating music/art. We have more respect for

what it takes to make this all happen than when we started. We continue to learn every day!

It's challenging to choose a singular moment as things just keep evolving, we have a new

favorite moment every week. The theme that brings us the greatest joy is collaboration. Black Tapestry started with just the two of us doing absolutely everything, and now we have the immense pleasure of collaborating with other musicians on projects, working with extremely talented sound engineers, photographers, and videographers to help realize our creative vision moving forward.

Our biggest accomplishment is that we were able to deliver on our idea by writing, recording,

mixing, and mastering our first album. We also took all the photos and did the art design. We really

wanted our first effort to capture the DIY ethos. Then we figured out how to translate it into a live

performance, when we originally intended it to be just a studio project. The accomplishment continues after 38 shows in 2023 including our first self-supported tour, and the recording of our second studio album, this time with a bit of outside help.

We would like to dispel the misconception that great music only happens on a large scale, or in

a specific genre. There is a lot of incredible boundary-pushing musicians on a smaller level. Local artists and venues often struggle to get support with crowd turnout, even though they are more accessible to more people than festivals and large shows, which can be prohibitively expensive and/or difficult to attend. We think that high caliber music should be available to everyone, and supporting local artists is a great way to make this happen. Keep going. If you have something to express, express it, even if you're offering falls outside of conventional standards. There is a place for all artistic offerings.

We are working on finishing production on our second studio album, OUTSIDE; set for release

on June 21st. We are releasing a single every four weeks until the full album releases, starting with

“Empty,” which hit all major streaming platforms on February 2nd. We are also excited to share

companion visual content for each release. We plan to continue playing local and regional shows and hope to tour more as well.