Michael Garfield - 'You Don't Have To Move' [Premiere]

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This song was inspired by a series of UFO encounters and prophetic dreams, written on a trampoline at Burning Man, and honed on extensive tours across three continents over the twelve years since… What you hear in this recording is the consummation of a lifelong project (well, since 1998) to develop and then integrate unique approaches to the guitar, live looping, and studio production.

– Statement from the artist –

I set out in 2008 to write a piece that brought all of the advanced guitar techniques I knew into one composition – fretboard tapping while singing, live looping, drumming on the body of the guitar, lead melodic soloing, and electronic remix. The first-ever iteration of this song I recorded in Phoenix, AZ in 2009 is still my most-watched YouTube video.

This is part of my ongoing album-in-progress, The Age of Reunion. If you’d like to be in the backstage song party and hear new tracks as I draft them, follow me and pre-order the album on Bandcamp.

Thanks for listening and I hope that this piece gets you there — by which I mean the rich, weird plenum of creation from which it was given unto me.

Lyrics:
I’m falling out of these open eyes
Filling up all of the world outside
I’m seeing more than fits in my mind
Spilling the bliss out through bright surprise
If there’s one thing I know, it’s that
Angels appear when you stop trying to prove them
And the clouds clear; you don’t have to move
I’m falling out of these open eyes
Challenging all my ideas of size
What was once narrow feels miles wide
All of a sudden, in all of time
If there’s one thing I know, it’s that
Angels appear when you stop trying to prove them
And the clouds clear; you don’t have to move

Cover photography by Michael Garfield (25-second exposures taken with the Ricoh Theta 360o Camera in Odemira, Portugal after playing at Boom Festival 2016).