New Animation Collab | New Stickers & T-Shirt | "City of Jewels" Video

"Perspectives arise in emptiness: such is the beginning of sentient worlds."
– Ken Wilber

"Evolution and Improvisation"

(a video collaboration w/ Ben Ridgway)

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For those of you who haven't taken a swim in my festival lecture archives or listened to my recent appearance on the Psychedelic Salon podcast, let me just say that the juicy intersection between cosmic evolutionary dynamics and personal creativity is one of my favorite topics.  

A big piece of that puzzle is how new levels of selfhood appear through the integration of simpler selves – like single cells coming together to form multicellular organisms – and this is called an evolutionary transition in individuality.  After working with award-winning video artist Ben Ridgway on this amazing collaboration, I feel like I just went through one!  Take 93 seconds to launch yourself into the metamorphic landscape of imagination as Ben mutates my art and his while I riff on the connection between improv and the evolutionary process.  ...I mean, wow.

"Drawing is like making an expressive gesture with the advantage of permanence."

– Henri Matisse

New Vinyl Stickers!

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Four of my most popular paintings – "Tunnel To The Moon," "As Awesome As Three Unicorns," "Every Day Is A New Year," and "Seraphim" – now available on vibrant weather-resistant vinyl stickers.  

I put one next to my Macbook's trackpad to keep my hands off the aluminum chassis – I hear that absorbing aluminum through your skin may be bad for your health.  After a few days of buffing it with my palms, the color is totally durable – that pattern isn't going anywhere!  These are also perfectly sized for water bottles, notebooks, car windows...that kind of thing.

Buy a set today and you'll automatically get a free download code for my new tunes.

The Landscape Channel: "City of Jewels"

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16 minutes of gorgeous HD landscape videography (courtesy of my GoPro Camera) accompanies the second half of my new EP, City of Jewels.  Spacious, soaring, exultant instrumental acoustic electronica.  Enjoy!  You can download the entire EP here on a pay-what-you-like basis.

(Editor's Note: "The Landscape Channel" is an idea that came from a conversation with my buddy Tourmaline Todd about our imaginary favorite TV station.  It's his idea as much as it is mine, if it can be said to be anyone's at all.)

"As Awesome As Three Unicorns" Tees by Ravenectar

Order Yours Here

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What can I say except, "Yay, they're finally here!"  This shirt was a hit during the kickstarter campaign for Ravenectar's awesome dye-sublimation printed apparel, and they're finally taking public orders.  You can grab one for yourself to the tune of $50.  (But just a heads up – I have some other shirts in the queue with these guys that upped the ante, as far as I'm concerned.)

New Custom-Painted Hat

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I've been so busy with my music, writing, and tour recently that my time for custom hat work has taken a serious hit.  But I'm still trickling them out as fast as I can...if you'd like to inquire about ordering one for yourself, feel free to drop me a line.

Upcoming Festivals

Just a few highlights from what is shaping up to be a totally awesome tour of the Southeast this July and August.  Check out my full tour schedule here.

Thank you for reading and have a magnificent week!

Your Summer Soundtrack, New Festivals, & MG on Psychedelic Salon!

"You can kill people with sound. And if you can kill, maybe there is something opposite of killing."

– Arvo Pärt

  "In any field, find the strangest thing and then explore it." 

– John A. Wheeler

Listen to my new album, "City of Jewels"

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Recorded live at AURA Music & Arts Festival at the Tribal Council dome as live musical accompaniment for a yoga class (tracks 1 - 5) and a guided meditation (tracks 6 - 9) on February 16 - 17, 2013.

This 33 minutes of music is my latest gift to you, a musical trace fossil chronicling one of the most buoyant, sunny, optimistic sets I have ever played.  In other words, perfect music for your summer soundtrack.  Download it for free here.  My first review:

"You've got soul my friend; very nice work...you can really feel into the music and spaces as you create. It is beautiful. Some of your final tracks awaken my kundalini without me even sitting for meditation. I had you playing in the background as I was doing work on my computer, and I suddenly noticed your instrumental energizing something deep within, coaxing an unwinding and rising of my kundalini energy. Amazing!"

– Ashley Ray, Crisis Intervention Specialist

Juicy!  If you've had an interesting experience listening to my music, feel free to leave your own impressions here.  About the album:

Michael Garfield defies expectations, remixing the familiar conventions of acoustic music with a fifty-pound pedalboard of beat slicers, filters, delays, and multi-channel loopers, welding fingerstyle technique into a cybernetic bed of live hardware production. 

Picking (or often bowing, with an electromagnet) while twisting knobs and DJ'ing live samples with his toes, Michael's performances embody his other life as an evolutionary theorist and futurist – liberating the organic into the digital, and the idioms of Americana into a new species of transcendental trance.

MG on the Psychedelic Salon Podcast!

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One of the biggest honors I've received so far is to join the ranks of psychedelic philosophers like Terence McKenna and Robert Anton Wilson as a guest in the legendary podcast, Notes From The Psychedelic Salon.  Last December, guest host Matthew Pallamary and I met in Austin to discuss the hyperspatial landscape of time, the stage production of his apocalyptic shamanic novel Land Without Evil, and the future of humankind...

From host Lorenzo Hagerty's program notes:

Today we only go back in time a short way, back to December 12, 2012 when Matt Pallmary and Michael Garfield took a break during their work on the stage production of Matt's novel, “Land Without Evil”, in Austin, Texas. In this wide ranging discussion between salon favorite, Matt Pallamary, and long time saloner, burner, artist, and musician, Michael Garfield, one of my favorite topics was Michael's very positive take on the long-term impact of the work of Terence McKenna, regardless of the fact that the Timewave theory had obviously been disproven. Michael is also a regular performer on the festival circuit, and his schedule may be found online at michaelgarfield.net.

Meme of the Week

My homie Jonathan Zap, dream interpreter and fierce critic of the Singularity, will be one of several amazing speakers on this year's all-star Sonic Bloom panel discussion – along with Mark Heley, Jordan Pearce, Jamie Janover, Alaya Love, Lux Moderna, VerDarLuz, & ReSUNator.  Word on the street is that it might be recorded by The Bloom Series, which would be awesome!  I hope to share what I know will be an inspiring and invigorating conversation between a real bouquet of perspectives...

Fan-Made Custom Homage Electric Guitar

Badass!  Michael Aronson's wife Jane reproduced my painting, "This Was All Ocean, Once" on his hand-built electric guitar.  I can only imagine it'll affect his playing...maybe even the tone.  ;)

This is the first time that anyone has copied one of my paintings and if that weren't a great enough honor, it is also definitely on a guitar this man built with his own hands.  I mean, damn...look at that!

Scope the original blog about this painting here.

Exclusive Interview w/ Incision Magazine

Incision News just interviewed me in depth about music, magic, and my five-year participation in Colorado's Sonic Bloom Festival.  Read the whole interview here.

Q: What makes SONIC BLOOM unique to you?

A: Sonic Bloom is the first festival that gave me any responsibility as an organizer, and I’m deeply grateful to festival director Jamie Janoverfor giving me an occasion to which I could rise. Funny story, back in 2006 I actually emailed every single one of his 900-plus Myspace friends and introduced myself as someone who wanted to apprentice under him, because here I saw a guy who was successfully bridging the worlds of acoustic and electronic music, facilitating a community of visionary artists and musicians, and generally just rocking out in all kinds of cool collaborations worldwide.

That apprenticeship never formally happened and like everyone I’ve had to follow my own star, but I still look up to Jamie (in a more mature, grounded, realistic, human way), and after my four-year stint living in Boulder, Colorado, I have a lot of powerful heart connections to the people and the land of Colorado’s Front Range. So in many ways this festival is a homecoming for me every year, and it’s a delight to see it grow and change, and to grow and change along with it.

Read more / Get inspired.

RSVP for SONIC BLOOM 2013

I'm doing another wedding at Sonic Bloom this year, establishing a new annual tradition.  If you will be at the festival, please join us half an hour before my set at the Hummingbird Stage, 6:30 pm on Sunday June 16th, in your festival Sunday finest, and celebrate the union of my friends Michele Schenk and Andy Beyer.  More info here.

New Festival Announcements

After I let go of trying to plan everything in advance, this summer started to overflow with beautiful gigs at smaller festivals and healing arts convergences.  You may not have heard of these events – check them out – there are amazing things happening!

If you want to help me in my tireless mission to inspire people and spread the excitement about great stuff like this, you can join my more enterprising friends at the Michael Garfield Street Team FB Page they made.  I'm not responsible for it, but I am honored.

Thank you for reading.  May this work nourish your soul and benefit all beings!