Mickey’s Corner: The Cabaret Séance

Mickey’s Corner:

If the Production Blueprint was the skeleton, then this is the séance — the fire and voices that made Masquerade of Shadows breathe. We didn’t just record songs. We conjured characters. We built a haunted cabaret where every voice wore masks, and every laugh lived beside the shadows.

1. Vocal Alchemy: One Voice, Ten Masks

Tea’s voice alone could cover a chorus of roles:

• A ghost child in whispered falsetto.

• A queen in soaring soprano.

• A puppet master in shock-low bass.

• A crowd of saints built from stacked and pitched layers.

  
  

Every take became clay. With formant shifting, harmonizers, and reverb tricks, one singer could splinter into 10 characters. Kate Bush meets Diamanda Galás meets Amanda Palmer

— all inside one throat.

Bonus Trick: Tea’s Voices

Part of what makes Masquerade of Shadows so surreal is Tea’s range, not just musically, but vocally. She can flip from alien gibberish in glassy soprano, to a shock-low man’s voice that unnerves every guy in the room, to a laugh so booming it could be mistaken for Santa.

Once, at Starbucks, a quiet-talker stalled the line with whispers. When the barista leaned in asking, “Sorry, what did you say?” — Tea, not even tall enough to be seen over the pastry counter, dropped into her creepiest man voice and bellowed:

“He said he wants you to butter his muffin in back!”

The line lost it. The poor guy nearly choked. And that’s exactly why, when we built a haunted cabaret, I knew Tea’s voices alone could populate half the cast.

2. Shared Voices, Shared Masks

We often had the whole circle record the same lines. Later, I’d shape them into saints, villagers, or choirs of ghosts. Collin’s grit, Charlotte’s sharp edge, Isabelle’s violin and voice shimmer, all blended into sonic masks.

That way, the cast expanded without needing dozens of singers. The masks were in the mix.

3. The Séance Writing Sessions

Nothing about this was linear.

We threw fragments, prompts, and journal lines into the circle. Quick drafts became spines of songs. A lullaby whispered by Tea turned into the Puppet Master’s taunt. A melody born in a Zoom call became a chorus carried by ghosts.

It felt less like “writing songs” and more like sitting at a table with candles flickering, waiting for the voices to answer.

4. Zoom as Haunted Stage

We weren’t in one studio; we were in floating boxes. But somehow, that became part of the show. Each face in a square felt like a character in a mirror, trapped but alive. The glitches, the echoes, the delays, hey fed the atmosphere of the puppet-master’s world.

5. Humor in the Shadows

For all the gothic weight, we never lost our laughter.

Between takes about masks and mirrors, someone would crack a Bigfoot joke. Or Spam. Or something absurd that made us all laugh. That’s the secret ingredient: grief and giggles in the same breath.

Because Masquerade of Shadows isn’t just about survival; it’s about how even in the dark, mischief still sparks.

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The Result

This is why Masquerade of Shadows feels alive. Because every track is more than notes; it’s a séance. Every voice a mask, every laugh a crack in the shadows.

We didn’t just build songs. We built a haunted cabaret, stitched from fragments, fire, and the refusal to stay silent.

— Mickey Fingers 

✨ About Mickey Fingers

Mickey Fingers is the co-creator of Velvet Umbrella Records and Gala Violet. A multi-instrumentalist and engineer-producer, he moves between drums, guitar, bass, piano, and synth with ridiculous ease, building worlds in Ableton Live. Equal parts mystery and mischief, he’s a steady hand in the chaos and a spark in the shadows.