Monday Exposure: Michael Garfield

Michael Garfield – It Hurts So We’re Not Dead (mp3)
Michael Garfield – The Cartographers (mp3)

It’s not often you hear the ukulele coupled with keyboards, distorted guitar and crashing drums, but judging by Michael Garfield’s music, it should happen much more often.

Michael is something of a 21st Century Renaissance man. He’s an artist, multi-instrumentalist, philosopher, evolutionary biologist, raiser of consciousness and writer. Here’s how he describes his approach to music:

I have an insatiable drive to innovate, to integrate depth and technique, to grab you and pull you with me into awe – a commitment to intelligent, evocative, forward-thinking music that forbids me from settling into a comfortable niche. These songs are fingers pointing at the moon: that locus of mutuality, beneath tracings of persona and circumstance, where we meet in oceanic silence amidst the noise.

I could go on quoting him all day, but I’ll just give you one more:

I understand my own role as a musician and songwriter as it appears within the context of a unified and harmonic universe, as a gesture of the same omnipotent principles that express everything.

He has an absolutely fascinating blog covering topics from light to polyamory to the ‘exaptation of the guitar‘ (I had to look it up too).

But what interests me most, is his music – and quite some music it is. I think he’s one of the most innovative musicians around using the ukulele. The moment when the distorted guitar starts up against the uke in It Hurts… is just perfect.

And he doesn’t plan on stopping the innovation. He tells me he’s recording the first ever touchstyle ukulele piece (leave a comment if you know different). Touchstyle playing involves no plucking or strumming but uses both hands hammering-on and pulling-off notes on the fretboard. You can watch Michael using this technique on guitar here (is that the bassline of No One Knows mixed in there?).

His album, Get Used To Being Everything, is available to buy pay-what-you-want-style on Songslide. As well as these two uke tracks, there’s plenty to savour on the album. I was blown away by the opener Autocatalysis. And you can do your thing for charity by buying the collaboration album The Dream Is Valid – A Benefit Compilation for Kiva Org

He’s a fascinating guy and a gifted musician. Definitely worth keeping track of in the future.

Michael Garfield on MySpace
Zaadz Visionary Music

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