This is the future home of “Ariel’s Instruments”, the ‘persona’ (more on that word later) for the musicians that are featured the “Psalms for Messiah” Album.
What is in the name Ariel’s Instruments? First… let us look at the name “Ariel”.
Ariel, Ariel! Woe to Ariel. (The city where David dwelt).
In Biblical Hebrew אריאל Ariel (pronounced ah-ree-ELL) literally means “lion of God”. We won’t explore that now, but it is worth a look.
Isaiah Chapter 29 is the mine from which the name of this music is dug. It is a deep lament OF GOD that is full of promise, like most of the songs on this album.
God is about to bring Ariel down to the dust. BUT… HE will already be there when “she” arrives.
Verse 2 in the venerable King James Version (and a few other versions as well) of the bible says, “It shall be unto ME as Ariel”! This evokes other passages such as Isaiah 63:9 which says
“In all of THEIR affliction HE was afflicted…”
Jeremiah 8:21 says,
“FOR the hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt; I am black; astonishment hath taken hold on me.”
Modern versions put it this way…
“I am crushed BECAUSE My people are crushed.” (NIV, NET, ISV, etc.)
Isaiah 53:5, which is included in its entirety on the Psalms for Messiah album spells it out further by saying,
But HE was wounded FOR our transgressions,
HE was bruised FOR our iniquities:
the chastisement of OUR peace was upon HIM;
and with HIS stripes WE are healed.
Much more could be said here (and perhaps we will return and develop this further but… ->). This mystery of God’s complete identification with the penalties of the curse, and His plea for us to enter into His fullness, through HIS work, is a core theme of everything on the ZCP site, and everything we have done on the Mystery of Israel website since 2007 or the God’s Foretold Work podcast since 2013, etc.
But for now let us move onto the word “instruments“.
Obviously, in the context of music, and as suggested by the inclusion of recognizable stringed instruments on the album cover of Psalms for Messiah, perhaps musical instruments in general come to mind first of all. At this point, I want to hasten to disclose, and introduce the idea of artificial intelligence music generation as a tool or instrument. That is a controversial idea that has evoked strong negative responses in some people. When I posted some of the results of my experimentation with AI music on the ZCPress YouTube channel, there were IMMEDIATE comments like, “I will NEVER listen to AI music”, or “I HATE AI!”. OK then. Perhaps we can catch up later on the issue, though the odds are that these people have probably already listened to AI music and didn’t know it. All I can say is, I have listened to the music I wrote for passages like Isaiah 53 as performed by ME, and then again AFTER using this AI instrument. Without controversy I can say that I listen and re-listen to the latter FAR more readily. I have been immensely blessed by it, and have stored up precious passages of Scripture within me as a result. This may not apply to more gifted and accomplished musicians.
So, this is why “Ariel’s Instruments” is a ‘persona’. It is not an identifiable group of musicians.
Like so many things in our lives, we could not do what we do without the countless lives that that have gone before us. With rare exception, the platforms we are standing on were built generation by generation by those whose names we do not know. This certainly applies to the whole realm of technology, but now I am specifically referring to the world of AI music. So I say ‘thank you’ to whoever you are who played the music by which AI music has been trained.
That leads to the second use of the word “instruments”. In the KJV of Romans 6:13 it says:
Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.
Later the idea is taken a step further by urging the presentation of everything to God.
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. – Romans 12:1
So… in this use of the word, not only those involved in the creation of this music (whoever they might be) the HEARERS of this music can be God’s instruments. THAT would the prayer behind all of the work that has gone into the creation of this music.
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A little about the process:
The music for Psalms for Messiah was written by me, Tom Quinlan, between 2016 and 2023. In every case, I felt what I would call a prompting from the Lord to undertake the task, and I would like to think that the music was inspired by the Lord. You can find MOST of it in its original form on the @zcpress YouTube channel, though some has been removed because of copyright issues.
In late 2025, I read a news story about an artist, Christopher Townsend, who had reached the top of some Christian music chart with an AI generated song under the name Solomon Ray. The story was centered around the controversy of AI, and whether or not it should be used in Christian music. I listened to that song and was moved enough to inquire as to what could possibly be the process that made it. I guessed correctly that the platform he used was Suno. I downloaded the app, and hummed in a rarely used tune of the hymn “Come Ye Sinners” that was on my heart. I was completely blown away by the results.
It wasn’t long before I was experimenting with my own songs, and this project became a full time job for a number of months. It turns out that I am a bit more picky about what constitutes acceptable results when it comes music that the Lord has given to me. The AI seems to love to take off and go in a direction of its own choosing, often “showing off” its vocal range. I have had to learn how to curb, or work around that tendency. It has also often tried to emphasize beats that it discerned in my songs in ways I did not intend.
I have generated well over 6000 songs to get the 12 that you will find on this album. That is an average of over 500 songs PER finished work. In some cases I have pulled attributes from different versions of a song into one. Songs that are over 2 minutes and 30 seconds had to be divided into parts and then re-combined later, because the AI cannot seem to concentrate on, or adhere to, my musical ideas for longer than that short period. The point of these statistics is that there is a production process in AI music that resembles real work.
On a positive note, the enormous number of repetitions of each song has been precious repetition of the WORD of God! These passages are now more ingrained in me than they were when I initially wrote them (a process that also involved much repetition). My hope is that the finished songs will enable YOU to listen again and again as it has for me.
Finally, I find the finish project so beautiful that it has inspired me to pick up the guitar again and PRESS IN to learning new things. I am practicing scales and working melodies in to the playing. I don’t imagine that there are enough years left to this age to get as good as what I am hearing in the AI generated music, but I am enjoying the process.