Sometimes in my YouTube account, I create playlists of music to help inspire my writing of one work or another. Below is my playlist “Diegaro”. “Diegaro” is Esperanto for Gathering of the Great Gods (Esperanto is the artificial language I use as the alien language). I listen to this sometimes to inspire or accompany work on my sci-fi novel Shadows and Stars, sometimes just to start the morning.

In the novel, the two main characters, the astrophysicist Daryn Jacob and his bodyguard/guide, Baslo Sero, are traveling by foot on a long journey across the planet Zaigosh. On Zaigosh, religion is outlawed. Nonetheless, tens of thousands of worshippers of many gods meet in secret and away from the government’s eyes in a remote canyon. Daryn and Sero happen into this celebration and see many odd and wild things. This playlist is a soundtrack for what they experience in the Diegaro.

This playlist contains 17 videos. All are dark, mystical, and pagan in nature. All are either mystical or visceral. Some have a haunting beauty. Groups/performers include: Anilah, Trobar de Morte, Skald, Faun, The Hu, Danheim, Ozgur Baba, Eivor, and Sagason among many others (some of these videos are playlists of their own).

This video will play only in a set sequence. If you would like to skip around within it, go to my YouTube page: Diegaro.

–Phil Slattery, Publisher, The Chamber Magazine

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