Album Review: EOTO's Fire The Lazers!!!

When I starting keeping an ear and eye to EOTO two years ago, I had no prior experience with the duo's wildly different band-of-origin, The String Cheese Incident. I knew nothing about these guys, actually, except that they were trying something that combined live instrumentation with software audio looping technology to create improvised electronic music – and that, as a looping musician uninterested in retreading someone else's creative terrain, I would do well to pay attention.

And at first, I was mightily unimpressed. Without the starry eye of a rabid Cheese fan, I saw no reason to privilege this project with the benefit of a doubt. What I saw was one guy admirably drumming his ass off and the other guy just goofing around – no matter what a monster musician Michael Travis was in his other ensembles, here he was just twiddling knobs, more stage presence than virtuosity. When I saw them for the first time at Wakarusa Festival in 2007, I waited fifteen minutes for him to pick up the guitar, and then he put it back on the stand after looping a positively uninspiring two-note diddy that didn't take long to start drilling into my brain. Jason Hann's drumming was stamina-licious, but didn't hold my attention for long. I didn't understand the hype.

How things have changed.

What at one point a was loosey-goosey garage jam of a psytrance outfit has hit the books and the road hard, executing heroic workaholic tours and internalizing the diverse idioms of the world's finest electronic musicians. When these guys aren't practicing, they're asleep, and it shows. Jason Hann has significantly stepped up his game, wresting the King Kong Drummer title from KJ Sawka and Zach Velmer of STS9 by learning a veritable zoo of beats. And Michael Travis is now back-of-hand familiar with the synthesizers and looping programs that define their sound. Together, the two exercise a telepathic sensitivity to the energies of their audiences, uncanny in their capacity to know just when to remix the beat or kick up the intensity, drop out one theme or introduce the next.

I'm a bit embarrassed to admit this, because I know these guys, and I call myself a fan; but it used to be that I was only in EOTO's scene because they had a crowd that liked to watch me paint at their shows. Now, I hold these guys in high respect. I look up to them not only as musicians but as working musicians, people who are constantly challenging themselves to grow and learn, experiment and play, with fair dues paid to what they don't know and a sharp eye to the road ahead.

And in this shift, I've gotten kind of attached. Emotionally invested. I'm not a big sports fan, but I imagine this is what it feels like – when they execute a sterling endgame play, I'm out of my seat and in the air whooping; when I see them slump back toward autopilot mode I'm waving my fist because damnit I know you can do better!

So I'm of two minds about their latest studio release, Fire The Lazers!!!

In one respect, it's the most intense and apocalyptic of the three albums so far – and that feels right, given that their name is an acronym for End Of Time Observatory. There was always something dark and tremendous I wanted them to capture and now they've not only netted it; they've tamed it and bred it into something even more monstrous and awesome. Dubstep and glitch hop have been good to these guys; they know how to ride the scene. I'm amazed that what is in essence a live instudio concert, produced in exactly the same fashion as their live shows and edited only for length, manages to evoke such grandiosity with only two guys. Tone choice is perfect. The mix is crystal clear. And it should not go unsaid that the album's design is pretty classy, perfectly branded with tongue-in-cheek 1950's comic space adventure art and even a trippy lenticular insert. (Although, as an aside: It's not a "hologram," guys. They're two totally different technologies; please stop muddying the waters of lexical precision.) It's one of the most epic sets I have ever heard from these guys, if I block out 2008's Halloween show in Lawrence, KS.

But I'm not too happy with what they've left behind in the process. In spite of its faults, early EOTO managed to balance their darkness with something sparkling and transcendental. No matter how much I felt sucked into the maw of Kronos by their explorations, there was a happy subcurrent, something I came to associate with the influence of Pleiadians and Buddhas they wore on their sleeve. If I suspended disbelief, I could damn near believe this duo was a conduit for divine energies, holding down some seriously sacred vibes while still getting me deeper in my own embodied groove. Plus, I got spoiled: I caught Travis actually wail on that guitar once or twice, saw what he's capable of with a fretboard. I saw the fruit of this holy union between laptops and a live band that reached heights that, with all due respect, groups like STS9 and Boombox would never dare to go. They stirred me into ecstasy with that stuff. And it's painfully missing from Fire The Lazers!!!, which seems a bit more wrapped up in the concept and cool, the groovy club dimension, something...kind of...smug.

In all fairness, I do occasionally see the contours of a gothic cathedral traced in the terrible majesty this album evokes, like in its chill-inducing first track, "Flying Red." But it's never long before those arches disappear into the murky fog of what other listeners would describe with words like "nasty," "sick," and "dirty."

Not to mention, grit aside, the fact that the studio presents a unique opportunity for a band like this to do something truly different, something impossible in their live shows, to stir it up with more sophisticated and fantastic arrangements, inconvenient instruments, and freaky post-production magic tricks. And they blew that one completely.

It isn't easy to be notorious badasses and still keep it fresh; you're constantly at risk of alienating your audiences (no pun intended). And so I'm finally giving these guys the benefit of a doubt. I'm willing to believe that I'll look back on this as EOTO's Dark Night of the Soul, their fling with the Dark Side, where there are no guitars and the shimmering depth is momentarily replaced by some kind of sexy-but-nasty postmodern chic. In fact, I'm almost certain, knowing these guys, that they're probably already kind of embarrassed with this stuff. That the last few months since their last studio sessions have seen a resurrection after their three days underground, a glorious and newly-integrated resurgence I can't wait to hear on the next album.

In the meantime, I love EOTO and what they do enough to tell you that Fire The Lazers!!! is worth a spin. It's a perfect album for certain situations – mostly the kind in which you want to be turned on and spooked out at the same time: autumn midnight drives, deliciously dark psychedelic forays, edgy sex and its neon club seductions. It has kind of a David Lynch-directs-Tron vibe, which is great, and certainly close to what they had intended. And it's light years ahead of their earlier live sets.

But I know they're going to read this review. And I hope they take it as a friendly challenge to bring back the divine intergalactic exultation I fell in love with. Crop circles, after all, aren't made with lazers.

(Written for Colorado Music Board.)

New Live Art From Re:Convergence

> Imagery
Euphonic Conceptions just put on Re:Convergence, a two-night rager at Cervantes in Denver. It was not only a program of some of the sweetest electronic music producers in the US (including Bluetech, Mimosa, and two nights of Ana Sia); it was also yet another in an accelerating stream of massive Denver live art throwdowns. Inspired by the half-dozen or so other painters that surrounded me at any given moment, as well as some delicious muffins and cookies, here are the two pieces I churned out of the kosmic art mill (when I wasn't taking a medicinal nap in the back of the theater or gorging on brie and fruit in the unusually well-stocked green room):

2009 11 13 Cervantes (Boombox, Two Fresh, Grown Folks)
18"x24" - opaque pens on masonite
original and signed 11"x17" available

Unlike the typical DNA polymers and ideal orbs, I think this one looks like someone threw a sabotage-sausage into the poinsettia factory. Or an eel discovering wormhole travel. Gaming geeks can rejoice at my not-so-disguised icosahedrons in the background (aka, twenty-sided dice)...

2009 11 14 Cervantes (Jason Sterling, Evol Intent, Mimosa, Bluetech, Octopus Nebula)
18"x24" - opaque pens on masonite
original and signed 11"x17" available

I haven't been doing enough work with windows and gateways, so this was an attempt to correct that. One thing I really try to communicate in my work is the duality of what quantum physicist David Bohm called the "explicate" and "implicate" orders – the apparent world, and the secret, deeper world behind it. The silence under the noise. The pattern under the chaos. Every painting is the universe in a nutshell. In this one, the endless fabric of creation and destruction underlies the clustered crystals of material form, which in turn underlies the dynamics of life. A reminder to look past the surfaces of things...

10,000 Breaks & My Lark For Zuvuya

> MusicBefore we dive into the paintings, I'd like to invite you to dive into my latest album: Quixote's Lark For Zuvuya, a live recording of my recent opening set at Quixote's in Denver for Zuvuya (the acoustic side project of Zilla's Michael Travis & Jamie Janover, with Xander Greene on acoustic guitar). Being invited to play in support of these fantastic musicians was a tremendous honor, and I had no choice but to seriously step up my game for their audience. Which was easy enough, because it was already a very significant day (marking my little brother's 10th birthday, as well as the transformation of a very long and difficult romantic relationship into something more nameless and profound)...this recording captures one of my most energetic and passionate performances ever, as well as the debut of several new live looping arrangements for older songs. You can download it for free here – or name your price for the music, if you're in a generous mood.

For those of you who were there, thanks so much for your patience in getting this online! For those of you who weren't, check it out! The performance swerved from swinging balladry to acoustic guitar techno to spark-shooting instrumental etudes...and it's yours as a gift of appreciation for your time and attention. So please, download it and enjoy!

> Imagery
FYI, I'm having a liquidation sale f some of my earlier paintings, which have been discounted 30% - 50% from their original asking prices. If you've been waiting for this apparently seasonal event to roll back around so you and your buds can scoop up some affordable original work, have at it! You love art; I love health insurance. Let's play "win-win." Here's the list of available paintings (at facebook and at myspace). And now, onto the new work...

2009 07 24 10KLF (Everyone Orchestra) - 18x24
Certify Electrify

I got into my virgin 10,000 Lakes Festival last week, a delicious gathering in upstate Minnesota held on permanent festival grounds (flushing toilets and shaded camping = major luxury). I was granted entry on journalistic assignment for GratefulWeb.com (my extensive festival write-up coming soon) and spent most of the weekend taking pictures and notes, but found some time to paint for some of my favorite artists. The Everyone Orchestra show was spectacular – with Dominic Lalli of Big Gigantic on saxophone and Steve Kimock on electric guitar, and conductor Matt Butler's energy was higher than I've ever seen. The show was a benefit for The Rex Foundation, founded by the Grateful Dead, which was raising money to buy instruments for local music programs – check them out and offer support if you can.

As for the painting...I've been getting more and more into intricately preparing backgrounds with cross-color fades and metallic spraypaint. In this case, I got so carried away with the background that this piece was an exercise in leaving it visible behind my penwork. The result was a perceptual paradox in which foreground objects appear to be behind background objects, like those trick rooms you look into through a viewfinder and kids appear taller than adults. Entirely unintentional. The guy who bought this one named it...he was on a "certify" kick that night.

available - 2009 07 23 & 24 10KLF (Wilco, Steve Kimock Crazy Engine) - 18x24
Swimming In Words

I'd never seen Wilco before and wasn't expecting much...but they rocked my socks half off. That Nels Cline was wailing on the electric guitar – but unlike fellow headliners Widespread Panic, Wilco's lead lines were integrated into a jangly wall of sound, instead of pushing the rest of the band into the background. And that's my style; I prefer band-as-explosive-organism to band-with-a-badass-hired-gun. I set up in the concrete beach of a general admission area down front for this one, which was kind of foolish. It was a high traffic area but TOO high traffic. One girl spilled an entire new beer all over the place and very nearly destroyed my book of prints; I got bumped into a lot; it wasn't especially visible to anyone but the river of people, and difficult for anyone to actually stop and watch. It was much easier to finish this during Steve Kimock's set, although I was baking in the midday sun the entire time for that one. Regardless, I consider this one a successful experiment in laying down a complex monochromatic background beforehand and spending the "live time" pulling out details and creating many layers from one. It reminds me of what it must be like to live in the naked Logos, deeper than space and time, swimming through the fundamental language of reality.

available - 2009 07 23 & 24 10KLF (Garaj Mahal & Boombox) - 18x24
A Wall Of Windows

I had the honor of painting onstage during Garaj Mahal for this one...if you don't know Garaj Mahal, make it a point to and you'll know what I mean. Every member of this jazzfunk supergroup is a master of his own instrument, and two of them (Fareed Haque on guitar and Kai Eckhart on bass) are actually music professors for most of the year. This band is their recreational project, which gives the music a playfulness and spontaneity rare even among jam bands. And of course, I love painting for Boombox whenever possible. Another experiment in dualtone backgrounds with gold spray. Looking through a fan coral at the evening's first stars, or the reef's reproductive bloom...

2009 07 05 & 24 Rothbury Festival & 10KLF (EOTO, Shpongle, Alex B, Big Gigantic & Big Gigantic) - 18x24
10,000 Breaks Vestibule

I had started this one at Rothbury, painting as an unofficial member of the ReSOurce Center's IAMU visionary art gallery next to the Tripoli Stage. But I was pretty distracted by other things that weekend and didn't have the opportunity to lay the finishing touches until 10K, which was just fine: I had another opportunity to paint for Big Gigantic's heady mix of live drums and saxophone with killer laptop production, which is always a treat. It was weird to be (to my knowledge) the only itinerant sidestage live painter at this festival, but I got a lot of welcome appreciation for it when I set up in the entryway to the event's Saloon Stage (the only permanent indoor venue I've ever seen at a festival – very cool). Thus the title (again, courtesy of the buyer).

available - 2009 07 31 Beaumont Club (Nick Steady, Mixed Method, Galactic Soul Tribe, Clandestine) - 18x24
Bassdream

I can't seem to shake those ferns! This one "happened" at Cicada Rhythm's Sunshine Bassdream, a lovely two-stage mini-rave in downtown Kansas City, where I set up outside in the glorious and unseasonably cool evening air and listened to great local live electronic hybrid acts and uptempo DJs until the wee hours. My friend David Titterington, a truly amazing visionary painter who puts my work to freakin' shame, was in town from Japan, and I enjoyed having him around to offer his painterly advice. The first time I ever started one of these pieces with an intricate background from scratch at the show, which was messy but fun. And even though I didn't know where I was going with it at the time, it does seem to have captured both the "summer" and "bass" vibes of the event with fidelity. I'm sure watching Planet Earth's "Grasslands" episode the night before had something to do with that. :)

> Writing
I've been a busy writer this summer. Here are some recent essays for your reading pleasure, as well as a few solid little interviews:

Vivid Journal – "Michael Garfield: Exposed!"
(...in which they ask me about my artistic process and how I've braided together art and music and writing in my life.)

MusicAndSpirituality.com – Interview w/ Michael Garfield
(...in which I contribute to an ENORMOUS survey of music visionaries by offering my own interpretation of the spiritual significance of music.)

D/Visible Magazine – "Biomimicry: Breathing New Life Into Design"
(...in which I introduce the emergent field of biomimicry, which seeks to solve human design problems with nature's own pre-existing solutions.)

Colorado Music Board – "Field Guide To Colorado's Live Artists: Kenzie Page"
(...in which I interview one of Boulder's newest live painters for my ongoing comprehensive survey of Colorado's insane live art scene.)

Colorado Music Board – "Sonic Bloom Festival In Pictures"
(...in which I share a very tiny slice of a very lovely weekend at one of the most beautiful venues in the world.)

Colorado Music Board – "Luke Redfield's Folk Mysticism And Mystic Folk"
(...in which I review recordings by my friend, legendary nomad-meditator-troubadour Luke Redfield, who demonstrates that spirituality knows no genre.)

> Share this with your friends!

Echoes Of An Interstellar Meltdown

> Imagery

These paintings are from my live art residency at Wakarusa Festival's Interstellar Meltdown, a festival-within-a-festival that featured sweet live PA and electronic rock acts all weekend. I was lucky enough to get "official" status for this one (artist's wrist band serial number 00002), so I basically camped at the stage all weekend, up until dawn with the late-night acts every night. It was a super productive weekend. My legs are only now recovering...

2009 06 04 Wakarusa (Studio + Gem, The Floozies, Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey) - 24" x 24" masonite board

I've been reading Michael S. Schneider's excellent book A Beginner's Guide To Constructing The Universe. It's a tour of the numerical archetypes 1 through 10, how they manifest in nature, what they meant to the Pythagoreans and Freemasons...and how to construct each in 2D and 3D with a compass and straightedge. So in my last few weeks of living in Phoenix, I spent a few hours every day exploring the arrangement of circles and straight lines to decompose larger polygons into fractal arrays of repeating stars, diamonds, and triangles. I almost didn't want to color this one in, given how lovely and subtle the gloss black and matte black of the paint and board looked together. But I kept photos of that earlier stage and will be making digital stencils for further exploration. And jumping out of the car at Wakarusa to immediately get going on this piece was a blast.

available - 2009 06 05 Wakarusa (Pretty Lights, Praang) - 30" x 15" canvas panel

People have been telling me for over a year that I should try painting on a gradient...so I did. And it was great. Definitely expect a lot more of that...gradients make the appearance of depth even easier than using a black field. And I'm all about the depth.

available - 2009 06 05 Wakarusa (Studio + The Egg, Telepath, Heavy Pets, Heavyweight Dub Champion) - 24" x 24" masonite board

Another experiment pulled from the pages of A Beginner's Guide To Constructing The Universe – this time, the "harmonic decomposition of a square." My mom gave me an octagonal prism lens (kind of like the kind that goes on kaleidoscopes) right before I left for Wakarusa and I was handing it to spun kids all weekend so they could look at this painting. The gold outlines on every harmonic are really sweet in person...this one is so formal and linear that I don't identify with it as much as some of my other works, but that didn't seem to dissuade anyone at the shows.

2009 06 06 Wakarusa (EOTO, 2020 Soundsystem, Madahoochi) - 30" x 15" canvas panel

GOLD BACKGROUND! What else to be said about this one? Except that I threw the plants in kind of late in the process and then had to pull the cubes back out from the background...which reminds me of one time when I was at Clinton Lake in Lawrence KS and saw a UFO fly behind a tree, except that I could still see its lights as if they were in front of the tree, which was very puzzling. Also, I'm really satisfied with the electric sparks coming off the cubes. My friend Nathan who is a huge Futurama dork said this one reminds him of "space honey."

available - 2009 06 06 Wakarusa (Somasphere, Boombox, DJ Rehka) - 30" x 15" canvas panel

Back to black. Above-mentioned Futurama dork was drawing fields of cubes when I hung out with him last week, so figured I'd veer into the realm so skillfully portrayed by Kris Davidson and try to build three dimensions out of two. Freehanding those cubes is getting easier all the time...but barely. There's a bit of multi-perspectival head-twisting with this piece, because if you start from the corners of the trigram it appears that the center cubes are larger but farther away...but if you start from the center, it seems like the closest corner of a tetrahedron pointing toward the viewer. Either way, our confused brains don't want to register this as flat.

available - 2009 06 07 Wakarusa (Shpongle, Chuck Love, Ott) - 30" x 15" canvas panel

Speaking of confused brains, this is what happens on the third night I've desecrated my melatonin cycle in the name of art. Kind of a topographic map of a digital desert under blacklight. I'm eager to explore plenty more concentric lines in future pieces.

> Writing

I was recently given a great extended interview about my art and music by Austin music blogger Tyler Groover on his blog TwoGroove.com – probably the most in-depth any journalist has ever cared to go with me.
Part One - Background
Part Two - Artistic Process
Part Three - Miscellaneous Ranting

I've also been writing for transhumanist magazine H+, where the future of technological and ethical evolution is examined by a community of thinkers who agree we're all about to call into question our deepest assumptions about human nature and existence. My two most recent articles:

Let A Hundred Futures Bloom (on page 67 of their digital edition)
A "both/and" view of the so-called "singularity" that will transform everything we know...my look at numerous possible future scenarios that could bring about a posthuman world, which might not be mutually exclusive.

The Spooky World Of Quantum Biology (not my title!)
It turns out that the "spooky" behaviors of the quantum world – where teleportation, time-travel, and bilocation are par for the course – are the machinery of life. New research indicates that quantum effects might explain the mysteries of biology, finally provide a stable definition of life, and allow us to tap the incredible computational ability of living systems to steer the course of evolution – or fulfill our destiny as pawns of the vast "intelligent design..."

New Year's 2009 Week Paintings (Denver & Boulder)

Each painting is available in 11"x17" prints for $15 each.
(Email me - michaelgarfield at gmail dot com - if interested.)

18x24, available for sale - 2008 12 29 Cervantes (Everyone Orchestra, Eric McFadden Trio)
Experiment in pseudo-tesselating stars, hexagons, and diamonds; three variations on a bubbling fringe; suggestions of a hidden gold and white layer behind and between; broad hatches as background noise; an occasional eye; implying directionality in flow. At Everyone Orchestra conductor Matt Butler's suggestion, I got this one signed on back by half of the band (a first).


18x24, available for sale - 2008 12 30 Cervantes (Panjea, DNALand, Lynx & Janover)
Play with ribbons: creation of an "obstacle scape" through which to thread orbs while teaching myself about layering; precision trial in black outlining; attempted "curtain" effect with ambiguous implied-motion relationship between ribbons and orbs (Rising together? Falling together? Moving past one another?); use of simple color theory to suggest depth (blues behind reds to simulate "bluing" with distance).


18x24, reserved until February - 2008 12 31.1 Quixotes (Sporque, Vibesquad) (late show for the 30th)
One continuous field of hexagons (reiterated inside themselves) split into two "passing" schemes; an attempt at something more primordial and diagramatic (as if those two things go together). Purple lines in the blue sections half-create cubes, and half leave it looking like a cross-section. It reminds me of a microscopic view of pollen collected on some membrane, or maybe natural glass.


18x24, available for sale - 2008 12 31.2 Cervantes (Panjea, DNALand, Lynx & Janover)
Another study in curtains of helices and bubbles, this time more formally related. Hoping to follow the festive New Year's theme resulted in inadvertently and uncannily illustrating the purple ribbons hanging from balloons on stage (although they weren't released until after I'd started the painting...). People kept asking if I was painting the balloons. I guess I was.


18x24, available for sale - 2009 01 01 Crowne Plaza Hotel & Owsley's (Boombox, Everyone Orchestra, & Vince Herman) (late shows for the 31st)
Picked up from a monochrome tunnel pattern I started on this board but left in my trunk for a month, this one's awkwardly balanced between two and three dimensions (Are the minicubes inside the bigger ones, or attached to their faces? Are the bubbles emerging from the golden void within each cube, or resting on their golden lids? Are the cubes actually receding into the distance, or just getting smaller?). Ambiguity and liminality were kind of themes for the night, but I can't claim total intentionality.


18x24, reserved until February - 2009 01 02 Rock N Roll Grill (Project Aspect, Motion Montage, Jeff The Box)
I wanted the ribbons in this piece to obviously organize the orbs, sweeping them up into a coil rather than just interacting idly - not a caress, but a grab - thus the contrast between free-floating and "wrapped" elements. Hexagons give a "trellis" style backdrop, and I finally attempted some kind of patterning on the ribbon itself. Lots of silver outlining. The artists at this show are all local basement projects that merit your attention - I can easily see this same line-up selling out The Fox in a year, so take notice!


18x24, available for sale - 2009 01 03 The Fox Theatre (Bonobo, Big Gigantic, Future Simple Project)
Varying states of completion in two interlocking elements (the flowers and orb clusters) made for a quick background that still gives the sense of approaching/receding and various depths; "plants" and jellyfish in the foreground rooted the image in something recognizable and took the flow off the sides of the board. Simple foreground coloration didn't confound the already-intricate backdrop. Modularity was emphasized. After a year of people telling me I draw deep-sea stuff, this is the first one to put representational and nonrepresentational elements together in the same painting in a way that unequivocally shouts "aquarium!" Expect more stuff like this, probably integrated with the ribbons and helices, in the months to come.