“Where would a wise man hide a leaf? In the forest. If there were no forest, he would make a forest.” ― G.K. Chesterton

The green of the trees begins to fade into gradients of earth and rust. The nights, once thick with air, have become crisp and exhilarating. Autumn wraps itself in a blanket of leaves, and embrace that will last for months.

Every season has cause for celebration; autumn is no different in the hills of North Carolina. And as the season changes around us, so the season changes within us well.

Tonewulf, up to this point, has been a collection of fragments. A collage. Words cut out of a newspaper and painted together in new sentences. Musings and melodies scribbled out and posted to the wall. A compulsive dalliance, perhaps, the impulse to nod in solidarity with an unknown passerby.

And just as we cannot always feel the season’s change approaching, there it is! A cool night signals that summer has put away her short sleeves and has wrapped a blanket around her shoulders.

And here we are now, Tonewulf, with our fur thick and ready for the crisp season we were made for. The sounds. The band. The music. The images. The process. A new fresh thing is emerging, the spirit of it has a hot breath and strong legs. This wulf is no longer a pup.

Attending to the quote at the beginning of this post – this is the forest we have made: Tonewulf is an American electronic band from North Carolina. We create and perform original music and curated visuals that tap into the deep reservoir of meaning buried in the psychedelic closet of the human mind.

What we offer you is a journey into the unfolding nature of existence. The forest is our field of consciousness… and beyond. And the hidden leaf is out there, somewhere on the forest floor, like a map of the forest, waiting to be found.

Join us.

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New 3 way #spookyseason split EN DARKNeS with @tonewulf, @Lay-Ko-Beats, and @oddfellow.dj releases 10/17/24 on @oblongsquare.records

August is fading and soon the cool nights will be upon us. When the lush greens begin to grow crisp, night draws close and dancing heats our bones. We are looking forward to projecting lights and constructing beats for you to dance to. First, we will be playing at the Burke Arts Council on October 3rd in Morganton, NC. The sky will be dark and we will cast colorful light on the white brick of the building en masse. You won’t want to miss it.

Second, we want to inspire you to move and groove, wherever you are. To do so we are creating recorded music that you will be able to download and stream from all of your favorite platforms. In fact, we have at least three albums worth of music in our golden vault, the first of which we will release this fall. Keep an eye on our Youtube channel for pre-releases and snippets of new stuff.

Third, if you haven’t yet…join our email list so you don’t miss any of the fun. You will get some behind the scenes and special stuff for joining, and it will only be a few emails per year. We promise.

We hope you are falling in love with life. We hope you are dancing with others. Pay attention – there is a lot of good around you.

Perhaps you have seen this video.

It is a group of people playing basketball.

Or is it?

Seek and ye shall find…but probably only what you are looking for.

This is why we need to listen to others. Listen to new music. Listen with undirected ignorance so we can hear the gorilla in the room.

Listen to new music, in genres you don’t understand.

Don’t start with labels. Start with paying attention.

Labels will shift. Categories will change. These are subjective.

Start with what stands out to you.

Start with what touches your heart.

Then talk to other real people about it.

What you pay attention to creates value.

Seeing or doing something new creates value.

Pay attention. See something new. Say something new. Make something new.

And make it good.

I haven’t done many remixes, especially of top-level artists. So when the band Caribou shared stems of their song “Broke My Heart” I couldn’t resist downloading them. What I found was that I gained a lot of insight from seeing the stems, how their were organized, and how they came together in a complete song. Total fun!

I then experimented with the tracks and began creating sounds of my own to make the song new hybrid remix. So check out Caribou’s mix of “Broke My Heart” and enjoy the different vibe of the Tonewulf remix.

Did you know, dancing can improve your mental health? Music isn’t just for the ears. It is for the body. You can dance your way out of a funk. You can move your body to move your mind.�

What does this mean for us?

It means we need to dance. And it means we need to dance together. A lot of people are struggling. Maybe you are struggling. It’s okay. We all struggle. Dance out your struggle.

Move your body.

We made this playlist for you to workout or dance. Try it. We use it too. The beats will move you.

Enjoy.

-TW

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The definite world is bounded and exists with finite possibility. The infinite world is also bounded, but with endless possibility. Our brain has two hemispheres – both necessary, but lead us to different understandings of the world.

“The left hemisphere’s goal is to enable us to manipulate things, whereas the goal of the right hemisphere is to relate to things and understand them as a whole. Two ways of thinking that are both needed, but are fundamentally at the same time incompatible.”

– Scottish psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist

If the two ways of thinking are incompatible (as McGilchrist posits), perhaps we need to allow one to speak, then the other to speak. One may triumph in hallucinations of grandeur, the other must make breakfast and go to work. Both are necessary, even if they cannot live in the same room together at the same time. I trust our artists to make poetic leaps and try the unthinkable – I trust our engineers to create reliable vehicles and roads. both the dreamer and the doer have their necessary roles.

“We can express our feelings regarding the world around us either by poetic or by descriptive means. I prefer to express myself metaphorically. Let me stress: metaphorically, not symbolically. A symbol contains within itself a definite meaning, certain intellectual formula, while metaphor is an image. An image possessing the same distinguishing features as the world it represents. An image — as opposed to a symbol — is indefinite in meaning. One cannot speak of the infinite world by applying tools that are definite and finite. We can analyze the formula that constitutes a symbol, while metaphor is a being-within-itself, it’s a monomial. It falls apart at any attempt of touching it.”

― Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky

The metaphor is a being within itself. It is the infinite moment of emotional clarity which is then described and rationalized after the fact. It is an iterative process of discovery. Feel, then think. Join the dance to discover the steps.

This is what we want to share with you through Tonewulf. you might have noticed that we create visuals that “don’t make sense.” A lot of our song titles are strange. These are exercises in poetry that we want to share with you. Feel first, then discover.

Linger with us for a moment. Stop trying to make sense. Experience the reality of NOW through your senses.

You can think about it later.

Just dance.

I strongly recommend you visit The House on the Rock in Spring Green, WI.

Why?

Because it will prompt a strong response. Read the reviews. People either love it or hate it.

A review of The House on the Rock left by Katherine C says:

“This attraction should be voted most likely to simulate an acid trip. Its the most wonderfully weird, eclectic, crazy collection and exhibit. There is literally nothing like the House on the Rock tour. If you love things that are a off beat and different, do not miss this place. Go all the way to the end.”

I can think of no greater compliment than this quote. It is pretty much what we are trying to do with Tonewulf.

And yet, another person said this:

“Clearly, as evidenced by some comments here, the House on a Rock has its fans — just as there are people who might thrill to the idea of being locked inside a deep-sea submersible, 20,000 feet under the ocean, with no means of escape and little oxygen, entirely dependent on factors beyond their control. If something about that scenario doesn’t work for you, forget about visiting this deeply claustrophobic, poorly managed hellhole. Once you enter, you can’t leave. (It’s a long, one-way, narrow path through the complex.) If you have breathing issues, allergies, asthma, anxiety, or any kind of mobility issue, do not even think about visiting. By the way, HotR isn’t a “house” but rather a warren of passages through seemingly endless interior spaces (almost no windows, no exit doors) in a complex of several structures, some of them of dubious structural integrity. Arguably, it doesn’t even meet normal standards of public safety. Fire-suppression or safety mechanisms? Not at all evident. Signage to help you find your way? Woefully deficient. Staff members to answer questions or even to help in cases of medical emergency? Nowhere to be seen. After you shell out big bucks for the privilege, you’re left to work through a very long, dimly lit, suffocatingly stuffy, filthy maze filled with the grotesque imaginings of a world-class hoarder from a pre-modern era. But maybe that’s your thing. Not mine.”

And it’s okay if sometimes people don’t understand.

Make something interesting. Chances are that even if some people don’t like it, other will.

Can you imagine a song that never ends?

An infinite game?

A pattern that dynamically unfolds, glory unto glory?

Check out this article by Stephen Wolfram – go deep. Ask hard questions. Explore reality with respect and humility.

This is the Tonewulf way.