Life Forces: We Read Call Super’s Tarot to Unlock the Key to His Creative Process
In the first edition of our new Life Forces series, we investigate the Gemini energy that influenced his latest album, Every Mouth Teeth Missing
Life Forces is a series where tarot reader, astrologer, and intuitive Bianca, from Life Forces Incorporated, taps into previously unseen cosmic territories with an artist. Both tarot and astrology are tools to understand ourselves better. Whereas our personal astrology is literally written in the stars at our time and place of birth, the energy channeled through the 78 archetypal cards of the tarot changes each moment they are brought forth in the space-time continuum. Over the years of Bianca’s practice, she has observed how these esoteric modalities can give new words to personal truths, uncover powerful energies we might not be fully aware of, and help us have more faith in our creative capabilities and unique journeys.
Sun Sign: Gemini | Moon Sign: Taurus | Rising: Cancer
Anyone who has taken note of Call Super over the years might have caught a delightful whiff of his eccentricity. Whether it’s his off-kilter productions escaping easy genre categorization, his track names that merit their own Wikipedia page, or his distinctive personal style, he’s never blended into the monochromatic techno with a capital T landscape. From his debut EP Yphsilon released in 2009 to his most recent, third album Every Mouth Teeth Missing, to his drawings and paintings often accompanying his releases, there’s always been something pleasantly odd about his art. To anyone even slightly familiar with astrology, it might not be surprising that the artist also known as Ondo Fudd and JR Seaton is a Gemini. Those born between May 21 and June 21 are often carelessly given the “two-faced” label, yet the terms curious, playful, multifaceted, intellectual, adaptable, and quick-witted would better describe Seaton and most Geminis out there on Planet Earth.
But as we discovered through unspooling his personal astrology, he’s so much more than a Gemini sun, and much of what was written in the stars at the time of Joe Seaton’s birth has revealed itself through his artistic output over the past 11 years or so. Certain planetary events (known in astrology as “transits”) over the years have also had a fascinating impact on his creativity.
In astrology, the various energies of the planets (for example, Sun in Gemini) find their expression in what are referred to as houses. This adds another layer to an individual’s astrological landscape. For example, Call Super has his Sun in Gemini in the 12th House. The 12th House is ruled by the water sign of Pisces, which is all about spirituality, dreams, and is often linked to a divine connection to creativity. So, while his conscious ego (Sun) with its Gemini energy manifests in his curiosity to the world around him and eccentric music taste, it expresses itself in quite a spiritual way. Upon sharing this information with him, Seaton opened up about his connection to spirituality and creativity.
“I grew up being taken to an Anglican church every week, and that side of my education, my mom made sure was pretty serious,” he recounted. “She wanted me to make my own choices when I was 11 or 12 about whether to carry on with religion in my life in some way.” And while Call Super ultimately opted out of it, he recalls feeling resentful towards the idea of religion “owning spirituality, like had the rights to spiritual discourse in life,” he says.
Later in life, he spent a lot of time thinking about how that can be reclaimed, picking up “The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality” by André Comte-Sponville to learn more about the subject. The book, he says, is “a history of how the church made sure that it had a monopoly on spirituality in order to make people stick with it. And actually, a way out of that is often through the arts. There are countless artists throughout time who have worked in a spiritual way that’s been totally disconnected from the church. That was always very inspiring and real to me.”
There are countless artists throughout time who have worked in a spiritual way that's been totally disconnected from the church. That was always very inspiring to me.
Assisting Seaton in his intellectual and spiritual approach to creativity are his Mars and North Node, also in Gemini in the 12th House. Mars as a planet tells us how we exert our will into the world, and what drives us, while the North Node points to our destiny in this lifetime. In the case of Call Super, his personality, drive, and his fate are united– a trio of energies within him leading to a curious, spontaneous approach to creativity that is guided by something bigger than himself.
There have been certain planetary events, or transits, that have occurred during Seaton’s time as a musician that shed a lot of interesting light onto his journey. Starting at the end of 2014, Chiron started its near 10-year journey into his 10th house. Chiron, known in astrology as the “wounded healer,” is the name of an asteroid discovered between the orbits of Saturn and Uranus in 1977. It points to the deepest wound we experience in this lifetime. His Chiron is in Taurus, an Earth sign concerned with the practical, material world, and its transit is in the 10th house ruled by Capricorn, another Earth sign. Capricorn, and more specifically the 10th house, is about career and responsibility. Therefore, since the end of 2014, there’s been a special emphasis on his life’s purpose and a feeling that he’s healing through his work. Curiously enough, Call Super pointed out that his first album, Suzi Ecto, came out at the end of 2014, the beginning of this special transit, a major milestone for any musician.
2020 has brought with it a lot of heavy energy from the planet Saturn, both collectively and for Seaton in particular. Saturn happens to rule Capricorn, and therefore the 10th house, and its energy brings forth restrictions, boundaries, and responsibility. In addition to the 10th house Chiron transit that’s been going on, from June 2 to December 16 of this year, his Mars is in his 10th house, meaning his drive is expressing itself in a more disciplined way, and there’s been more focus on work. At the end of September around the middle of this transit, Seaton made two announcements – an official Instagram page for his Can You Feel The Sun label with Parris and his third album Every Mouth Teeth Missing, which was released at the end of October on Incienso Records.
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Written over the course of three years, his latest full-length is pure Gemini, 12th House music. It touches on a sort of instability felt over the course of its creation that he sought to channel through the album’s 10 tracks, laid bare in the sunburst guitar, soft piano, and strange percussion punctuating the silences in opener “An Unstable Music.”
“My role [as a DJ] soundtracking club nights is playing music that is generally incredibly formulaic and predictable, and that’s where its energy comes from,” he explained. “I wanted to make some music which felt to me more representative of the kind of instability, and the strange paradoxes of these things that we live with, and the wild contrasts in life. I wanted to make music that just spoke more to how I was feeling that, and music which was in some way a little bit more unstable. And didn’t make so much sense together, and yet was still joyful, and positive, and the things we look for in music.” “Pay As U Glow” is a shining example of this concept, its rhythms are frantic, the main synth line is almost as shiny as a 90s House anthem, but it’s brought down to murky earth with occasional rumbling bass and strange piano keys that float in and out.
He also told me he’s been working on music again, which was no surprise considering the beautiful influence of his Sun in the 5th House, a house where the sun shines at its happiest and most self-expressive. We spoke a few days before his album came out October 23, and he mentioned in the past week or so (right when the transit was starting), that he was able to get into a good flow in the studio.
After weaving through astrology, his creative process, the collective and personal energies of 2020, and how they’ve been affecting him, we drew 3 Tarot cards to see where his energies are heading. The Knave of Swords, the 4 of Cups, and the Magician came up for Seaton. Swords represent air energy (very Gemini) and Cups are water, having to do with emotions and spirituality (very 12th House), while The Magician is a card representing the power to manifest things in life. Throughout our conversation, Seaton expressed a desire to observe and analyze rather than taking up space with too many words, which is very much Knave of Swords energy. The 4 of Cups to me indicated that Seaton, through his role as an observer, will be able to demonstrate to those around him in a subtle way that no matter how bleak things can seem, there is always beauty in life; even if the way it decides to show up is a bit bizarre. Then the Magician comes along to create magic, which for Seaton is his music.
Call Super then elucidated how the cards resonated with him. He described feeling very connected to the role of the observer, mulling over choices he has made over the past few years related to race and respect, pondering the fact that most clubs, line ups, and media in the house and techno world do not reflect the cities they operate in and have not been open places for new Black voices.”
‘Where have I helped create better spaces, where have I not?’ he asked himself. “Community” was a term he investigated over the summer. “I chose to write down what that word actually means to me and then use that definition to identify clearer ways for me to operate to help the communities that I am a part of. Social media did not actually figure so prominently in that definition, hence me nodding when you made the comments about “observing.”
2021 is going to be a very difficult year as we emerge from a pandemic in which the largest price has been paid by those who could least afford it.
He concluded with his thoughts on how the tarot cards might forecast the year ahead. “2021 is going to be a very difficult year as we emerge from a pandemic in which the largest price has been paid by those who could least afford it. It will deepen those profound inequalities as opportunities return first to those who lost the least. That framework, and all those thoughts that this year has enabled, are going to be put to use all the damn time. That is where your drawing on air and water– ideas and emotion– mixed with the Magician, which I guess I should see as music, was also something that made me think about all these things with another dimension to my vocabulary.”
Seaton’s power as an artist lies in his spiritual connection to his music, how he connects to his creativity as a way of channeling something greater than himself. With the curious air energy of Gemini and the emotionally connective water energy of Pisces with him on the level of his soul, drive, and destiny, it’s no surprise he has brought so much fascinating, innovative art into the world over the years.
Every Mouth Teeth Missing is out now on Inciensio. Support the artist on Bandcamp.
Bianca Giulione is a writer, Tarot reader, astrologer, and founder of Life Forces Incorporated. Find her on Instagram.
Gabriel Massan is a visual artist based in Berlin. He has previously collaborated with NTS Radio, Kaltblut Magazine, and designer Lucas Leão.
Published November 24, 2020.
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