Since 2005, I’ve made music as Episteppe — here’s my long-defunct MySpace — my ever-fluctuating “do anything as anyone” music persona. That sounds broad, because...it is. Episteppe is my avenue for imagining more of the kind of music I love from the musicians I resonate with. The name comes from that feeling of being forever on the cusp: the 'epicness of being on the steppe', the threshold before form, always on the edge of becoming something else. When you are not one fixed thing, you can become another, which suits me.
Making imaginary records in the voice, atmosphere and sensibility of artists I love, while keeping the whole thing clearly personal, authored and speculative: alternate-discography writing, a record label for impossible albums, whatever phrase fits. If I want more Mars Volta, I do not wait around for the universe to produce the exact album my brain is craving. I make an imaginary one as Oscillata Topaz Ark. If I want more Mastodon, I make that under Holocene. If I want a Tool-shaped transmission, that comes through Psios. Meshuggah has its own branch, Chogrom. Fleet Foxes is Saddle An Elk, Queens of the Stone Age (Five-Stud Diamonds) and so on (about 100 'alternartists' in total so far).
The point is not imitation alone, but controlled transformation: each version of Episteppe becomes a different costume, instrument, mask and ritual body.
OTA’s name felt right to me for a few reasons. “Oscillata” gives it movement, electrical fluctuation, vibration, nervous-system instability, the back-and-forth tremor of prog machinery and psychedelic fever. “Topaz” gives it colour, mineral brightness, desert heat, ornate jewellery, something cut, hard and glowing. “Ark” gives it the container: the vessel, the ship, the thing that preserves creatures during a flood, the chamber carrying impossible life through catastrophe. Together, Oscillata Topaz Ark sounds like something Omar and Cedric might have come up with. Maybe.
Starting with OTA
On Monday 8 March 2021, during the long wilderness period before The Mars Volta’s real-world return, I posted a creative exercise to titled “Imagining a new TMV record as a creative exercise” You can look it up if you like.
Anyway, that album was Undine Orgiastic Cantata which, much like Frances the Mute and The Bedlam in Goliath, would tell a story.
This time, the story concerned a coven of sapphic water nymphs who visit Earth. The album was built as a fictional long-awaited return: aquatic, erotic, cosmic, mythological, absurd, tragic and ornate. It had a full sleeve treatment, a tracklist, liner-note copy, fake contextual writing, artwork by James Gleeson (look him up, Australian surrealist I studied at University), and a story that moved from otherworldly lake to earthly horror to martyrdom by art.
Looking back now, Undine Orgiastic Cantata is not just an imaginary Volta album. It is the first proper Oscillata Topaz Ark release. It is OTA-001.
Oscillata Topaz Ark — Discography
1. Undine Orgiastic Cantata
Originally conceived: 2021
Mode: aquatic Volta myth-opera
Visuals: James Gleeson.
Concept: a coven of sapphic water nymphs discover a dimensional portal in their otherworldly forest lake, travel to Earth, encounter humanity’s cruelties and pleasures, and divide over whether to abandon the world or dissolve themselves into it as music, art and poetry.
Tracklist:
1. Oplom (Instrumental) [4:55]
2. Emulatra [6:54]
3. Acapulco Con Carne [11:11]
4. Hemispherotica [3:45]
5. Liaisoneur [4:49]
6. Quidaz [7:43].
7. Pardalis (Por Pesos) [2:33]
8. Lambastardos [4:55]
9. Vestibules I: An Oligarch’s Countenance [8:11]
10. Vestibules II: Spasmoid Inflector (Oligarch Reprise) [12:10]
11. Avena Ad Libitum [7:15]
12. Wolfram Sighs (Instrumental) [3:32].
Undine Orgiastic Cantata opens with “Oplom,” an instrumental threshold piece, the sound of the lake beginning to think. “Emulatra” introduces the first joyous Earth-contact, a song of pleasure, movement, imitation and embodiment. “Acapulco Con Carne,” at eleven minutes and eleven seconds, is the record’s first grotesque feast: a cannibalistic vision of the planet as appetite, tourism, meat and spectacle.
“Hemispherotica” then splits the album into mirrored halves: water and land, woman and world, home and Earth, transcendence and disgust. “Liaisoneur” brings infidelity into the story, not merely as private betrayal but as a species-trait the Undine struggle to understand. “Quidaz” introduces dictatorship, command, submission, uniforms, mass fear, and the machinery of human cruelty. Side C gives the album its unstable sweetness. “Pardalis (Por Pesos)” is brief, spotted, feline, transactional and strange. “Lambastardos” contains the key phrase of the whole record: humanity’s “miseries and majesties.” The Undine are repelled by us, but they are not blind to what survives inside the wreckage. Then “Vestibules I: An Oligarch’s Countenance” presents the face of worldly power: swollen, painted, rich, dead-eyed, ceremonial and grotesque.
Side D is the schism and dissolution. “Vestibules II: Spasmoid Inflector (Oligarch Reprise)” turns power into convulsion. The system spasms. The world’s cruelty becomes bodily, neurological, rhythmic. “Avena Ad Libitum” is the martyr-track, in which Avena and her two remaining sisters choose not to return home, but to dissipate into Earth as energy. Their souls become music, art and poetry. “Wolfram Sighs” is the epilogue: a mote of that martyr-nymph energy settles on the screen of a smartphone and is mindlessly swiped away. That final image is the whole joke and wound of the album. A cosmic sacrifice becomes a speck on glass. The sacred arrives, and attention fails.
2. Xiphoid Remonstrations
Year: 2022
Mode: ecclesiastical swordfighter prog-body opera
Visuals: Kris Kuksi
Concept: a nun with a metal jaw contemplates her former life as a swordfighter, culminating in her embarking on adventure once again.
Tracklist:
1. Genuflector [8:58]
2. Lecturnite (Ye, Of The Night) [4:32]
3. Safekeeper [3:43];
4. Ozona (Instrumental) [7:21]
5. Cryptopedes [16:44]
6. Shudderesque [9:57]
7. Lathe To The Grave [6:55]
8. Tractorback [2:45]
9. Hepburn Massif (Instrumental) [5:20]
10. Headcaverns [9:12]
11. Bleak Serifs: Part I — Fleet of Worms [12:12]
12. Bleak Serifs: Part II — The Growling Vase [13:13]
13. Luminantiquata (Instrumental) [2:22].
Where Undine is water, Xiphoid Remonstrations is metal, bone and vow. The title points to the xiphoid process, the little blade-like cartilage at the base of the sternum, and “remonstrations,” meaning protests or objections. So the album is already arguing from inside the chest. Its heroine is a nun with a metal jaw, once a swordfighter, now supposedly given over to a life of contemplation. The record is the sound of that old life returning through the body.
“Genuflector” begins in ritual posture. “Lecturnite” gives the album its night-language. “Safekeeper” suggests the vow, the locked history, the weapon hidden behind obedience. “Ozona” opens the air before “Cryptopedes” drags everything underground into a sixteen-minute catacomb of insects, bones and memory. “Shudderesque” is the crack in the convent wall. “Lathe To The Grave” turns death into manufacture. “Tractorback” drags the old self back into motion. The closing stretch becomes mountainous and cranial. “Hepburn Massif” is an elegant instrumental ridge. “Headcaverns” brings the record fully inside the skull. The “Bleak Serifs” suite then gives the album its written curse: worms as fleet, vase as growling reliquary, language itself becoming the thing that carries the adventure forward. “Luminantiquata” closes it as a relic-glow, the light after the blade has been lifted.
3. Furtive Reliquae…En Masse
Year: 2023
Mode: prairie pocket-world bestiary.
Visuals: Mario Chiodo
Concept: the floor of an old, inconspicuous barn in Alberta opens up to reveal a pocket-world of Slothmen, Thrimpids and Windslicers, deadly vessels that seek and destroy any trespassers.
Tracklist:
1. Folivora [4:33]
2. Arion Vampiri [7:42]
3. Nestled Kin (By The Fountain) [5:45]
4. Pelluciloid Dreams [9:14]
5. Explorium [3:19]
6. Stratovariforms (Instrumental) [12:13]
7. Windslicer [4:33]
8. Eccén, Esóter, Eclécti (Orbitalismans Triptych) [24:24]
9. Inveiglerida (Twilight, Night, Dawn) [5:41]
10. The Thrimpid Well [3:26]
11. Upswell (Instrumental) [11:66]
12. Downswell (Instrumental) [13:21]
13. Grail Zoffler (Bonus Track) [4:41]
This one starts from a plain image: an old barn in Alberta. The floor opens. Beneath it is not a cellar, but a pocket-world. That is the tonal pleasure of Furtive Reliquae…En Masse: the cosmic hidden under rural boards, the impossible underneath dust, hay and weather. The record’s creatures have names that sit between children’s nonsense and occult taxonomy: Slothmen, Thrimpids, Windslicers.
“Folivora” gives the record its sloth-body. “Arion Vampiri” brings in blood and shell. “Nestled Kin (By The Fountain)” implies that the pocket-world has domestic life, not just monsters. “Pelluciloid Dreams” makes the place translucent and synthetic. “Explorium” is the descent. “Stratovariforms” expands the weather in a twelve-minute instrumental before “Windslicer” introduces the hunting vessels. The centrepiece, “Eccén, Esóter, Eclécti (Orbitalismans Triptych),” is a twenty-four-minute cosmological mechanism, the point at which the barn-world reveals its own religion. “Inveiglerida” moves through twilight, night and dawn, a seduction across the full dark cycle. “The Thrimpid Well” gives the album its source. “Upswell” and “Downswell” leave it moving vertically, as if the pocket-world breathes beneath the barn.
4. Ulcerion
Year: 2024.
Mode: digestive duchy body-horror epic.
Visuals: Beth Cavener Stichter
Concept: the Grand Duchy of Ulcerion, a metaphysical civilisation localised entirely within the ulcer of an unnamed tropical animal, is explored by the nameless, faceless “Reggie”: the vessel which traps the soul of any listener to the record and forces them on the perilous journey.
Tracklist:
1. Tripolar [4:33]
2. Congestuaries [7:19]
3. Creatrix Murmur (Duodenum) [3:33]
4. Slipstream Pagoda (Jejunum) [4:44]
5. Quantumescence (Ileum) [5:55]
6. Sinensis Divina (Citrus Dei) [7:31]
7. The Hidden Temple [5:33]
8. Lithosphera [4:24]
9. Reginald’s Problem / Abhorratica [4:21]
10. Odeum Invector (Regicide) [8:44]
11. Lipqueaser [6:11]
12. Flummoxide (Pt. 1) [7:45]
13. Carpalmistry (Pt. 2) [8:11]
14. Ulcerion [15:55]
Ulcerion is the body-world record. Its entire civilisation exists within an ulcer. Not metaphorically, not as a throwaway image, but as the premise. The Grand Duchy of Ulcerion has courtly dignity and biological disgust at the same time. It has hierarchy inside inflammation. It has civic life inside a wound.
The listener is trapped inside the journey through Reggie, a nameless, faceless vessel that captures the soul of anyone hearing the album. “Tripolar” opens in psychological imbalance. “Congestuaries” turns vascular blockage into geography. Then the intestinal sequence begins: “Creatrix Murmur (Duodenum),” “Slipstream Pagoda (Jejunum)” and “Quantumescence (Ileum).” Anatomy becomes architecture. Digestion becomes pilgrimage. “Sinensis Divina (Citrus Dei)” gives the wound a divine fruit. “The Hidden Temple” brings pulp-adventure language into the ulcer. “Lithosphera” hardens the inner world into crust. “Reginald’s Problem / Abhorratica” briefly punctures the grandeur with absurd specificity. “Odeum Invector (Regicide)” is the political crisis. “Lipqueaser” is the necessary grotesque. “Flummoxide” and “Carpalmistry” form the chemical and prophetic lead-in to the title track, where the duchy presumably shows itself in full.
5. Amniothéque
Year: 2025.
Mode: amniotic star-bed transmigration farce.
Visuals: Yoann Lossel
Concept: the stable boy Pesoja herds the butterfly-ostrich for a living on the planet Linthmida. He has a dream of a planet called Earth, and he is poured from his star-bed like a liquid into this world, emerging suddenly from the chest of a jovial German man who is in the middle of telling the story of his divorce.
Tracklist:
1. Wünderlich [3:22]
2. Orthoma [6:18]
3. Roiling Tears (The Face I Once Knew) [4:46]
4. Osterne Fears (The Wind That Once Blew) [7:21]
5. Rabbit Teeth Nursery, Part 1: Bedworld Darkens And Our Hero Emerges [8:12]
6. Rabbit Teeth Nursery, Part 2: Frog Gullet Mafia [7:31]
7. Rabbit Teeth Nursery Finale: And The Widened Mantle Swallowed All [5:33]
8. Slobbermudaz [16:21].
Amniothéque is the birth-record, the dream-record, the wet interplanetary joke-record. Pesoja, a stable boy on Linthmida, herds butterfly-ostriches and dreams of Earth. The dream becomes a transit event. He is poured from his star-bed into our world and emerges from the chest of a jovial German man who is mid-divorce anecdote.
“Wünderlich” sets up wonder with a Germanic tilt. “Orthoma” sounds like a structure or doctrine forming around him. “Roiling Tears” and “Osterne Fears” give the record grief and wind, face and memory, resurrection and displacement. Then comes the “Rabbit Teeth Nursery” suite, which turns the album into a fable of darkened bedworlds, frog-gullet criminality and mantle-swallowing apocalypse. “Slobbermudaz,” at sixteen minutes, is the final mess: thick, childish, wet, ceremonial and hostile.
6. Impeirador, Of The Vastlands
Year: 2026
Mode: alternate-Mexico coalescence crisis.
Visuals: Dave Kloc
Concept: an alternate-dimension Mexico self-coalesces into a single entity known as Los Impeirador through the means of a device known as an Essencetrap. The Minutiae Militia are the only ones able to respond, and the album chronicles their management of the crisis.
Tracklist:
1. Essencetrap [3:22]
2. Los Tempos D’Impeirador [6:18]
3. Mannequin Ramekins [6:18];
4. Tornadog [6:18]
5. Minutiae Militia [7:43]
6. Lamika [6:18]
7. The Vastlands [6:18]
8. Tumor Loch [6:18]
9. Blisteressence (The Blissterenes Rejoice) [6:18]
Impeirador, Of The Vastlands is the political-geographic metamorphosis album. An alternate-dimension Mexico folds into one being through the Essencetrap. Los Impeirador is singular and plural at once: country, ruler, body, landscape, fever and event. The Minutiae Militia are the responders, tiny by name and presumably overwhelmed by scale.
“Essencetrap” opens with the machine. “Los Tempos D’Impeirador” gives the new entity its time and pulse. “Mannequin Ramekins” brings in uncanny vessels. “Tornadog” supplies storm-animal force. “Minutiae Militia” sits at the centre as the emergency-response song. “Lamika” personalises the crisis, perhaps as figure, place or weapon. “The Vastlands” opens the map. “Tumor Loch” returns the record to diseased geography. “Blisteressence (The Blissterenes Rejoice)” closes with infected celebration.
7. The Parables of Pogwyn the Pale
Year: 2027
Mode: folkloric post-psych EDM-prog
Visuals:
Concept: Pogwyn the Pale, a half-saint, half-foolish woodland preacher with skin like wet parchment, wanders through the deep old forests of a nameless borderland reciting nine parables to the creatures, ghosts, exiles and failed lovers who gather around him. Each parable changes the listener slightly, until Pogwyn realises his stories are not moral lessons but spells left behind by an ancient forest intelligence using his mouth to rebuild itself.
Tracklist:
1. Beneath the Fiefdom of Threnn [5:12]
2. Chamberwight [7:04]
3. Of Forests Dark and Deep [9:33]
4. Coquettemptress [4:48]
5. Jalis (Arrival) [6:21]
6. Psynomnia [8:08]
7. Strangelings [5:55]
8. Agharu (Departure) [7:17]
9. With Strain and Strife, I Smite Thee [13:26].
The Parables of Pogwyn the Pale is the folklore record, the damp-wood record, the one where Oscillata Topaz Ark leaves ulcers, nymphs, barns and alternate countries behind and enters the old forest with a cracked lantern. Pogwyn is not a hero in any clean sense. He is a wandering pale figure, preacher, fool, witness and accidental vessel, moving from hamlet-edge to root-hollow to ruined chapel, telling stories to anything that will listen. The album’s post-psych EDM-prog mode gives those stories a strange pulse: old-world fable dragged through sequencers, flutes, hand-drums, broken circuitry, choirs, bass pressure and insect-like arpeggios.
“Threnn” opens as invocation: a word that may be a name, a bell-sound, a curse, or the first syllable of the forest waking. “Chamberwight” introduces the dead room-spirit who follows Pogwyn from an abandoned manor and records every parable on the inside of its own ribs. “Of Forests Dark and Deep” is the album’s first full descent, a long track of trees, thresholds and watched paths. “Coquettemptress” brings in temptation, flirtation, glamour and danger, a figure who keeps changing shape depending on who desires her. “Jalis (Arrival)” marks the entrance of a traveller from beyond the forest’s outer law, while “Psynomnia” turns the record psychic and juridical, as if the trees have their own hidden court.
“Strangelings” is the exile-song, centred on a childlike creature found beneath a bridge, neither human nor spirit nor animal, who understands Pogwyn’s parables before Pogwyn does. “Agharu (Departure)” mirrors “Jalis” and begins the leaving, though by this point departure is no longer simple: anyone who has heard the stories now carries part of the forest inside them. The closer, “With Strain and Strife, I Smite Thee,” is Pogwyn’s final sermon and his first act of resistance. He realises the parables have been using him, shaping listeners into vessels for the forest’s return, and he tries to smite the intelligence speaking through him. The ending is deliberately unresolved: Pogwyn may defeat it, become it, or merely tell the final story that lets it bloom.
•
That is the first Oscillata Topaz Ark run (there are more): seven albums, beginning with water-nymph martyrdom and ending with a country becoming a body. Across them, the OTA branch establishes the Mars Volta mode of Episteppe: invented titles, elaborate concepts, fake liner-note density, body-worlds, mythological nonsense, political grotesquerie, bodily architecture, cosmic jokes, and a constant refusal to let the imaginary album remain small.
Stay tuned for the next one!
Note: the music itself is being kept private for now. Once tools evolve, I'll feel more comfortable sharing that aspect of it, and will update these links with Soundcloud tracks.
