Told by the Oracle of Delphi • Folk-Rock Opera • Volant Records

A timeless Oracle steps from the smoke of her sacred chamber and opens a vision to those gathered before her—no royal court, no battlefield, but a circle of listeners gripped by her voice. Across the span of twenty songs, she carries them through the life of Alexander the Great, not as a list of deeds, but as a living journey she witnessed in the currents of fate.

She begins in Macedonia, where ambition is born in the shadow of kings and in the fierce devotion of mothers and teachers. She sings of a youth who burns toward destiny, shaped by the tensions of a fractured court and the sudden violence that thrusts him onto the throne.

The Oracle follows him across continents as his armies surge through Asia. Victories rise like pillars of fire—Granicus, Issus, Gaugamela—each a turning in the wheel of fortune. But with every triumph, she unveils the growing weight on his spirit: the unease of his commanders, the strain between old tradition and new vision, and the fragile dreams he tries to forge into a single, unified world.

Her voice darkens as she reaches the cost of glory—betrayals whispered in tents, rebellions coiled in silence, and the shattering grief of losing the companion who steadied his heart. The paths ahead narrow as his empire widens, until even the Oracle’s tone trembles with what she knows must come.

At last, she carries her listeners to Babylon, where the conqueror returns diminished, circled by shadows and sickness. She sings of a man who shaped nations yet could not halt the slow unraveling of mortality. In her final vision, she reveals that every empire—no matter how vast—fades to memory, and only the stories endure.

As her last note falls, the temple grows still. Smoke drifts upward. The vision closes. And the Oracle leaves her audience with a single truth: greatness reshapes the world, but time reshapes greatness.

The Eagle Over Issus

The Sand Took the Last of Their Footsteps

The Silence After the Drumline

The Crown Taken in Firelight

Stones Lifted Into Light

Crown in the Shattered Hall

Where the Last Flame Settles

The Lion Sleeps

What Remained After

“A great leap forward in understanding and contextualizing Mary’s life, after two millennia of her being dismissed and rewritten by patriarchal power structures.” James Cameron 

 “Tabor restores her voice, her faith, her motherhood, and, most of all, her humanity, in this groundbreaking portrait that challenges everything we thought we knew about the origins of Christianity.” – Reza Aslan

A world-renowned historian of early Christianity and ancient Judaism lifts the veil on the life of Mary – revealing her revolutionary role as the matriarch of the Jesus movement.

Mary, mother of Jesus, is the best known – and least known – woman in history. Revered and worshipped by millions, she remains a figment of the imagination, the ethereal subject of Raphaels and Botticellis, bathed in heavenly light, too virginal and too pure to move among us.

But what about the real Mary?

In The Lost Mary, James D. Tabor corrects the record, laying out the results of his intensive textual and archaeological sleuthing over the past three decades, including new evidence regarding Mary’s genealogy (which may be hiding in plain sight in the New Testament!). Tabor’s quest for the historical Mary offers a transformative perspective on Jesus and his early followers, and recovers the nature and essence of earliest Christianity.

“In recovering her story, we discover not only the hidden roots of Christianity but also a model of resilience that speaks across time. Mary, Tabor shows, reminds us that behind every movement are women whose voices have been silenced, whose influence has been hidden in plain sight.” – Candida Moss, National Geographic

"The Lost Mary effects an imaginative repatriation of this ancient and elusive figure, vividly conjuring both her character and the times that she lived in. Tabor’s Mary is ‘lost’ no more.” – Paula Fredriksen, author of When Christians Were Jews: The First Generation

The Lost Mary: Rediscovering the Mother of Jesus, By James D. Tabor, Read by James D. Tabor

Volant Records is a story-driven label and shared universe: cinematic concept albums, stutter-house, western sagas, haunted pop, and hymn-like instrumentals. Home to Jupiter Morrow, Avaline Ingels, Shadow Face, Buck Ramble, Choralith and more. All Worlds Reserved®.

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New tracks tagged #ancient history