Happy summer, everybody! We're well into the hot months, and insofar as life is the spontaneous formation of order for the dissipation of excess energy, I've been an actively engaged in the metabolism of our cosmos – making more art and music, I fear, than you can actually absorb.
So be it. May this love's labor find you on a good day, when you're looking for some fresh and interesting stuff. We seem to have less time for taking in new art and music than we did when this blog started in 2009, but I'm convinced the work just keeps on getting better, and I'm honored that I get to share it with you.
In this newsletter: new (and very different) music; new live art (both analog and digital); two Future Fossils Podcast episodes (on time loops and on driverless hotel rooms); and a secret stash of never-to-be-aired recordings.
Enjoy, and write back any time,
Michael
New Song: "Indecision"
"Mars Volta meets what Dave Matthews might hear after trying DMT? I love it."
- James Boswell (Ming Dynazty)
"Fantastic. Like a The Books track with extremely creative vocals."
- Anthony Thogmartin (Papadosio, Earthcry)
"It's like TOOL and Herbie Hancock had a baby."
- Matthew Foglia
"A great sonic achievement! Reminds me a lot of Peter Gabriel's best stuff."
- Norman "Dr. Blue" Katz
"Fantastic. Like a The Books track with extremely creative vocals."
- Anthony Thogmartin (Papadosio, Earthcry)
"It's like TOOL and Herbie Hancock had a baby."
- Matthew Foglia
"A great sonic achievement! Reminds me a lot of Peter Gabriel's best stuff."
- Norman "Dr. Blue" Katz
In the moment before acting lies a void
where every future gleams, reflecting every other
every moment a uniquely blooming world.
In the space between two thoughts
where every other instant grows
expanding now into infinity
and every possibility unfurls...
How do you choose your next life?
every moment a uniquely blooming world.
In the space between two thoughts
where every other instant grows
expanding now into infinity
and every possibility unfurls...
How do you choose your next life?
I'm finally back in the saddle with the project I began way back in 1998: to join the Great Parade of visionary and alchemical songwriters, marrying acoustic and electric elements for tunes that gesture toward the singularity we live within in every moment.
Whatever else I do, the songs I've offered to this world in a handful of rare studio efforts (2006, 2008, 2014) are the sharpest and most polished work, the closest to my soul and sense of what is truly meaningful.
"Indecision," paintstakingly produced by my partner in crime Mitch Mignano, is the fruit of an epic co-creative pregnancy. Read all about it on my Patreon account...
(Special thanks to Randal Roberts for the perfect cover art!)
Upcoming Concerts:
27 July – Santa Fe – Oxygen Bar Apothecary Restaurant
28 July – Albuquerque – House Concert in Albuquerque with Seth Hoffman
8 August – Santa Fe – Tumbleroot Distillery with Josh Glenn Experiment
New Painting: "Our Lady of the Late Jurassic"
Here is my latest painting, "Our Lady of the Late Jurassic" - a tribute to the amazing Archaeopteryx, my spirit animal and one of history's most legendary fossil creatures – painted live at Meow Wolf for my first Santa Fe gallery show at Eye on The Mountain. (Acrylic and oil pens on 20"x20" panel.)
Read the whole story at michaelgarfieldart.com.
Notes from InterPlanetary Festival 2019
Signed Canvas & Cardstock Prints
Last year, Santa Fe Institute's InterPlanetary Festival changed my life: this confluence of luminaries celebrating complex systems thinking and space exploration inspired me to move to Santa Fe. (Here's the free live album of my concert from last year's event.)
This year, on staff at SFI, I got to sit on stage and take live notes on a huge LED wall for some epic panels on synthetic biology, science fiction, and visionary architecture:
Check out this Google Photos album for all of the notes I took this year (both final images and time-lapse videos), plus the painting that I made on stage alongside Santa Fe's Tone Ranger:
I highly recommend you watch the full-length videos of each discussion, with my notes unfolding in real-time behind the panelists, because those conversations rocked. But if you aren't that curious, here's a fun 360º time-lapse of the UFO piece you can groove to in less than one minute:
New Podcast Episodes
The latest episodes of Future Fossils cover both ends of the spectrum this show seems to span: on one hand, Eric Wargo's brilliant take on how the future co-determines history; and on the other, Nathan Water's genius mashup of self-driving cars, technomadism, and the blockchain.
And lastly, I have finally made good on promises to drop a cornucopia of secret episodes on Patreon supporters with more than eight hours of never-to-be-aired recordings – including a totally bizarre panel discussion on the nature of time from my 2017 Australia tour, chats with a tantric instructor and a standup comic, and three other would-be episodes too weird to live, too rare to die:
Subscribe on Patreon for Secret Fossils
"If the truth is so important, then why am I in trouble for trying to find it?"
- Shane Mauss
