This mixtape traces my descent into, and emergence from, the wilderness of faith unraveling. Beginning in the garden of reckoning, devotion cracks under silence and doubt, and carries me through lament, collapse, and the lingering weight of trauma it all leaves behind. Here I’ve collected songs that wrestle with belief, disillusionment, and the aching hope that something redemptive might still rise from within.

1. Duane Scuttlebutt & The Fog-Town Five, “Gethsemane” — The story opens in the place of anguish: Gethsemane, a biblical garden where surrender and despair collide. This country-tinged cover reframes that moment as universal — the reckoning all of us face when belief falters.

2. Manchester Orchestra, “The Silence —” The divine goes quiet, leaving only unanswered prayers and echoes in the dark. A vast, cinematic cry against the absence of God.

3. Moses Sumney, “Doomed” — The lens turns inward: if love, or God, fails — what remains of the self? Sumney’s voice hovers on the edge of existence itself, fragile and suspended.

4. David Bazan, “Hard to Be” — The disillusionment sharpens. Bazan, once an evangelical frontman, lays bare the contradictions that made his faith impossible to hold. A confession wrapped in bitterness and grief.

5. Julien Baker, “Faith Healer” — Still searching for relief, Baker threads together addiction, longing, and the false promises of easy redemption. The chorus aches with desperate prayer, even as belief falters.

6. Chelsea Wolfe, “The Way We Used To” — Memory haunts. Wolfe sings like a ghost recalling lost innocence — faith as something dimly remembered, irretrievable, yet still pulsing at the edges of memory.

7. SZA, “Good Days” — A turning point: the struggle shifts toward healing. Though haunted by regret, SZA reframes salvation as something internal — “good days, always inside.” It’s a hymn of self-reclamation.

8. Sufjan Stevens, “No Shade in the Shadow of the Cross” — Stripped bare. Stevens finds no comfort in the cross, only the weight of grief and mortality. An anti-hymn, hushed and devastating.

9. Sampha, “Blood On Me” — Fear resurfaces. Sampha runs breathless from inherited guilt, marked and hunted by nightmares of faith. The chase never ends; the trauma lingers in his body.

10. Derek Webb, “A New Law” — The journey closes with critique. Webb dismantles the trappings of religious legalism with sharp irony, pointing toward freedom beyond rules and control.

May you know peace in the midst of your struggle, and may you be led toward the truth that breathes life into you and stirs your spirit.

With love and music,
Samuel