Amulets, the solo project of Portland based audio and visual artist Randall Taylor, joined KGNU’s Indra Raj to talk about his long evolving approach to ambient and experimental music. Taylor discusses his musical roots in bands and solo projects, the evolution of Amulets, and his distinctive use of handmade cassette tape loops and live processed guitar. He also reflects on documenting his process online, the collaborative nature of his current tour with Midwife, and how ambient and experimental music has grown over the past decade. Amulets performs at a KGNU Presents show at the Chautauqua Community House on Tuesday, February 10th with Midwife and Sun Swept. (Recorded 2/5/2026)
Indra Raj: This is KGNU FM 88.5 Boulder, KGNU 1390 Denver. My name is Indra Raj, and my guest today is Amulets, the solo project of Portland based audio and visual artist Randall Taylor. Using handmade cassette tape loops and live processed guitar, Amulets creates long form compositions that blur the lines between ambient, drone, noise, and electronic music.
Amulets will be performing at a KGNU Presents show at the Chautauqua Community House on Tuesday, February 10th with Midwife and Sun Swept. Welcome to KGNU, Randall.
Amulets: Hi.
Indra Raj: It’s so exciting to have you here, especially because you and I go way back.
Amulets: Yes, we do know each other.
Indra Raj: We do know each other. Through mutual friends at first, and then we became friends ourselves, a long time ago when I was living in New York. Where were you living at the time?
Amulets: I was in Buffalo, New York. I remember taking a lot of very cheap JetBlue flights to New York just to hang out.
Indra Raj: It was so fun. You went to high school with one of my friends who I was living with, so we all spent a lot of time together. And now, almost 20 years later.
Amulets: Yeah.
Indra Raj: Here we are. It’s wild. We didn’t stay in super close touch over the years, but we saw each other at our friend’s wedding, what, maybe ten years ago?
Amulets: Yeah, that was about ten years ago.
Indra Raj: And I think back then I saw you perform live.
Amulets: Yep.
Indra Raj: And now I get to see you perform live.
Amulets: Which is just full circle.
Indra Raj: It really is. And honestly, it’s been so fun to keep up with you on Instagram and watch what you’ve been doing within the ambient music world and beyond. I was so excited to see you were coming through Boulder, and even more excited that KGNU is presenting the show. Such a small world.
Amulets: I love that too.
Indra Raj: I’d love if you could walk us through your journey with music, how you got started, and how you arrived at where you are now.
Amulets: As you know, our mutual friend Dan and I started a band in high school. We were a rock cover band at first, and I was playing guitar. Then we had a small original band for a bit, and I was in lots of different bands throughout high school and college.
During college, I also had side projects, mostly one person electronic music projects. After college, I kept playing in bands, always trying to figure out what I wanted to do musically. At the same time, I was working an office job for many years and doing music on the side.
It wasn’t until about twelve years ago that I started this new solo project, Amulets. At first it was kind of a joke, like, we’ll see where this goes. I was trying to make dark electronic music that blurred into ambient music. Over time, it kept evolving, especially when I started incorporating guitar and cassette tape loops.
Now it’s become this full project that brings together all these different influences, and it’s really about pushing how much I can do as a one person band.
Indra Raj: Your use of cassettes is really interesting, very analog. What was the first cassette you used for this project? Was it something you made or something you already owned?
Amulets: I first got the idea after seeing a YouTube video, a rig rundown with Alessandro Cortini from Nine Inch Nails. He was showing how he used a four track tape recorder as a live instrument, recording drones onto each track and playing them almost like keys.
I bought a four track and tried doing that, but recording thirty or forty minutes of drones was taking forever. I remembered learning about tape loops in college and decided to try making one myself. Recording five seconds on a loop was a lot faster than recording an entire tape.
When I started experimenting with tape loops, there weren’t a lot of clear resources online, so I tried piecing together information from different places. Eventually that pushed me to make my own YouTube video showing how to make tape loops. Over the years, a lot of people have told me they learned how to do it from that video.
Indra Raj: Wow. I didn’t realize you were such a pioneer in that space.
Amulets: I definitely didn’t invent tape loops, but I think I helped with their revival. I was really focused on documenting my experiments and being transparent about the process. I started making top down videos for YouTube and later Instagram, showing little sketches, ideas, and experiments.
Those sketches often turn into songs or techniques I use live. I think people responded to seeing the process, not just the finished music. That transparency really caught on.
Indra Raj: Speaking of live performances, you’ll be here in Boulder on February 10th at the Chautauqua Community House. I imagine each performance is a little different because of the live processing and looping.
Amulets: Definitely. About half of the set is prepared and half is improvised. I know the general structure and the landmarks I want to hit, but every night I make different decisions, like letting a section go longer or cutting something short.
It keeps things interesting for me, and it keeps me on my toes. Using tape loops live can be really fun, but also really disastrous, so there’s always an element of unpredictability.
Indra Raj: This tour is with Midwife. How did that collaboration come together?
Amulets: I’ve been a fan of Midwife for a long time. We met around 2015 at the Columbia Experimental Music Festival. We were both playing, and we had a mutual friend who helped organize the festival.
We became instant friends. I actually helped Madeline start her Instagram that day because her label told her she needed one. From there, we collaborated on several songs and realized our sounds worked really well together.
We talked for years about doing a full tour, and now it’s finally happening. We’ve been playing on each other’s songs live, which makes the shows really collaborative and special.
Indra Raj: That’s so exciting. It’s interesting to hear you met over ten years ago at an experimental music festival, especially now that ambient and experimental music feels like it’s really on the rise. What has that been like from your perspective?
Amulets: It’s been really interesting to watch the growth. I remember booking DIY tours years ago when it was hard to get people to come to shows at all. Over time, I’ve definitely seen more interest, especially in the process, the pedals, the tape loops, and how everything works together live.
More people seem curious about how this music is made, and I’ve had people tell me that my work inspired them to explore this kind of sound themselves.
Indra Raj: Amulets will be performing at a KGNU Presents show at the Chautauqua Community House on Tuesday, February 10th with Midwife and Sun Swept. Randall, thank you so much for joining me on KGNU.
Amulets: Thank you so much for having me. This was awesome.
