TREEFORT MUSIC FEST 14 (2026)—DAY ONE (Wednesday, March 25, 2026)

The Septuagenarians are back at it again!! On behalf of The Evening Class, Michael Hawley and I leaned into five full days of music, dance and art (Wednesday, March 25-Sunday, March 29), sampling from 500+ bands performing at 40+ venues throughout downtown Boise, and reminding ourselves that rock and roll will keep us young or—perhaps more realistically—keep us thinking we’re young. Treefort Music Fest is a fountain of youth in form and function and fantasy. 

Michael and I lean into Treefort at different angles. For weeks before the festival he takes advantage of Treefort’s Spotify list and—I kid you not!—listens to every single track to familiarize himself with every single band. I wait until a few days before the festival begins and determine my schedule by how I want to move around the festival village and who’s available to listen to wherever I happen to be at any given time. Moving around the village has become a concern due to a bad back that makes walking long distances difficult and so I’m grateful to Treeline, the festival’s bus service provided by Valley Ride, that allows me to bounce between far-apart venues, if I’m so inclined. That’s really Michael’s thing. He crisscrosses the festival village, diving into the Neurolux, hanging at the Shrine, rushing back to the Main Stage in an enthused effort to see as many acts as possible. My focus, no less impassioned, is more centralized and tempered by the experience of having attended Treefort since its inception. I’ve watched it morph from a waddling toddler to full-blown adolescence. I’m also morphing. Edging towards decrepitude, I call it, though I’m not quite there yet. Still, I’m not as prone to bounce from venue to venue like Michael. 

He jumped feet-first into Day One by catching eight sets (okay, some were just 2 or 3-song partials). We both started out, however, with The Other Room There, before he took off to see Dela Freed at the Boise Brewing stage, The Old One Two at the Neurolux, Death Lens at the Shrine Ballroom, back to Boise Brewing for The Thing, then joined me at the Music Hall for the tail end of Son Little’s set leading into Tune-Yards. We had agreed beforehand that we had to catch one of our Bay Area favorites—Tune-Yards—at the Treefort Music Hall, which I knew was going to be a packed event, and I wanted to have an advantaged perspective from the slightly elevated tables to the sides of the stage so I arrived early to claim one and stayed with it the whole evening so that—by the time Michael joined me—I could share our unobstructed view of the stage. I settled into my table and didn’t budge. You could call that unfair and selfish. I call it smart, even clever. The only disadvantage was that I couldn’t leave it for fear of losing it and so didn’t record any of the acts: The Other Room There, Floating Witch’s Head, Kassa Overall, Son Little and Tune-Yards; but, that was okay. I just wanted to enjoy the music. 

Photo:  © Jordyn Puckett

I wasn’t intending to watch local band The Other Room There—they were on Michael’s schedule—but, after shuffling our schedules, it only made sense, and I was really glad I added them on because—boasting their third performance at Treefort—they were upbeat and a great way to launch the fest. They performed select tunes from their recently released “Look Alive”, including a catchy cover of Billy Idol’s “Dancing With Myself.” 

Settling into my chair before Floating Witch’s Head took the stage, the physical sense that I would not be moving all evening seemed underscored by how my age from hereon in would negotiate Treefort. I want to make a point here that Treefort allows for such accommodations. I may not be able to experience Treefort as I have in years past, but it’s clear to me that I can enjoy Treefort for many more years in different ways. Looking out at the youthful crowd milling around while waiting for the next act, I was touched by the heedless entitlement of their youth. Youth, they say, is wasted on the young. I’m not sure that’s true. But it does give an elder pause observing young people throwing away minutes, idle hours, like party confetti. I bless them and the joy Treefort will give the young for generations to come, let alone senior statesmen like me. 

Photo: Unknown

Floating Witch’s Head started their set and I considered how clever Eric Gilbert was for booking his band early on the first day to free himself up to enjoy the rest of the festival. Well-deserved. 

Cribbing from Treefort’s website: “Floating Witch's Head is a project based in Boise, Idaho concocted by Travis Ward (guitars &‬ vocals) with Michael Mitchell (drums), Eric Gilbert (keyboards). RIYL [“recommended if you like”]: garage, psych, swamp,‬ proto-punk, acid rock, beards, hot peppers, pickles, parties, nice people‬.” I mean, is there anybody who doesn’t? 

Boise's own garage-psych power trio offers overdriven‬ guitars, organs, Moog bass lines and driving rhythms that are easy to love.‬ At the heart of Floating Witch's Head is the songwriting of Travis Ward—also the frontman of the‬ nearly 20-years active Hillfolk Noir. While Hillfolk Noir is very much a folk oriented affair, Floating‬ Witch’s Head is a sweaty, gritty, tube-driven, garage-y milieu. Joined by Eric Gilbert (previously Finn Riggins) on‬ organs/synths and Michael Mitchell on drums (who I’ve also been enjoying in LED’s house band), this is a band dedicated to the artistry of music‬ and all the little things in a song that make it great.‬ Ward’s open guitar tunings and overdriven amps lend themselves to a very heavy, psychedelic‬ blues-oriented guitar. Gilbert on keys provides organ leads and soundscapes while providing‬ perfectly punchy round basslines through his Moog synth. Then there’s Mitchell on the drums‬ whose taste on the kit balances driving rhythms with laid back beats in all the right moments.‬ 

Photo: © Josh Farria / The Seattle Times.

I’ve long described Treefort Music Fest as a discovery festival and I mean that not only in terms of being introduced to bands and performers but an equal exposure to multiple genres of music. Because if you thought Treefort is just about neopsychedelia, folk or hiphop, you’re misinformed. One of Treefort’s most innovative acts is jazz drummer Kassa Overall, whose liquid and lambient arrangements inspires the mind to fly. The appreciative Treefort crowd went soaring. 

Participating in a New York Times survey conducted by Giovanni Russonello, fellow drummer and Grammy Award-winner Terri Lyne Carrington described Overall as a “pre-eminent style bender and blender, successfully juxtaposing genres through his production expertise and use of melodic and harmonic forms that deftly integrate the new with the old.” 

That bending and blending is evident on his latest album CREAM (2025), where the acronymic title track “C.R.E.A.M. (Cash Rules Everything Around Me)” artfully reworks Wu Tang-Clan’s original; “Back That Azz Up” covers Juvenile; and “Nuthin But A ‘G’ Thing” leans right into Dr. Dre. 

While I was enjoying Floating Witch’s Head and Kassa Overall and holding onto our primo seats at the Treefort Music Hall, Michael was out and about exploring the festival village and edging up against mosh pits. He had regrettably missed seeing Boise's own Dela Freed at last year's Treefort Music Fest and—having fallen in love with their 2022 single, "Billboard Jesus" (with its anthemic chorus, "I don't need your Billboard Jesus, to save me from your diseases")—he rectified last year’s omission by catching Freed perform a stripped-down version of “Billboard Jesus” on the Boise Brewing stage.

  

The last time Michael got close to a mosh pit was 30 years ago during a Rage Against the Machine set at Free Tibet in Golden Gate Park. I experienced that mosh pit with him. We were having a perfectly nice picnic with friends when Rage Against the Machine took to the stage, the crowd exploded into fury, and me, Michael, our friends, our picnic supplies, abruptly shifted 30 feet away from our original position. It was one of the most horrifying experiences of my life. Thus, I am grateful and respectful that Michael dared edging up against a mosh pit while watching L.A. post-hardcore punkers Death Lens perform their new single "Debt Collector" at the Shrine Ballroom.

  

Brooklyn-based The Thing takes a back-to-basics approach to rock and roll. Raised on Zeppelin, psych rock, and jazz, each member adds a distinct edge. The result is loud, unfiltered, and entirely their own. Michael caught a Boise Brewing stage performance of "Dave's TV" from The Thing’s 2025 self-titled third LP.

  

Michael then joined me back at the Treefort Music Hall to enjoy Tune-Yards. My prediction was right. The place was packed and I was glad we could watch the concert from our comfortable position. I have so many filmic memories of San Francisco, including a performance by Tune-Yards at the 55th San Francisco International Film Festival (2012) where they accompanied projections of Buster Keaton’s shorts. That was a thoroughly entertaining event. As was their Treefort performance, which Michael described as “insanely great.” The highlight was "How Big is the Rainbow" from their 2025 album "Better Dreaming." Tune-Yards mastermind Merrill Garbus (accompanied by Nate Brenner on bass and keyboards) led the audience in the song's ethereal chorus. She also struck a few seriously comic Maori warrior poses.

  

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#Treefort2026 

TREEFORT MUSIC FEST 14 (2026)—WINDOW WALK

Nothing heralds the arrival of Treefort Music Fest like Boise’s First Thursday Window Walk where artists and vendors collaborate to amp up the anticipation. With 38 painted windows ranging from the West End into BODO, here’s a few that caught my eye. All photos: © Michael Guillén. All Rights Reserved.  

 

 

 

 

 

Hap Hap Lounge. Artist: © Walter Gerald. All Rights Reserved.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dawson Taylor Coffee Roasters. Artist: © Maiyan Justice Linane. All rights reserved.  

 

 

 

 

City Peanut Shop. Artist: © Dana Wagner. All Rights Reserved. 

I really love the peanut with the Saturnesque rings around it. Let alone the peanut astronaut and the peanut rocket pilot! 

Dana Wagner describes herself as "an illustrator and graphic designer who loves bright colors and bold shapes." She earned her bachelor's degree at Furman University in Studio Art with a minor in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. With a few years of freelance work under her belt, she headed back to class to earn her MFA in Illustration from Savannah College of Art and Design. 

"When I'm not illustrating and designing," she admits, "I'm probably sewing a quilt, baking banana muffins, validating my friends, or playing with my cat Stella." 

Zen Bento. Artist: © Julius Bridgeforth. All rights reserved.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Barbarian Downtown Beer Bar. Artist: © Justin Masi. All Rights Reserved. 

 Justin describes himself as "a quiet man of questionable talents, scratching, scribbling, & sculpting behind a battered desk in Boise."

Fête Style Bar. Artist: © Andie Kelly. All Rights Reserved.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Zamzows. Artist: © Ben Bingham. All Rights Reserved. 

I stopped into Zamzows to get some compost and was delighted to see their first participation with Treefort's Window Walk, which is gaining range with each successive year.  

Form And Function Coffee. Artist: © Jess Scheider. All Rights Reserved.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Boise Brewing. Artist: © Mitsuko Stoddard. All Rights Reserved. 

Mitsuko is one of the artists who has been selected by the City of Boise to participate in their Public Art Collection. She'll be designing an image on the theme of transportation for a traffic box at 195 S. Capitol Blvd. Congratulations, Mitsuko!   

The Record Exchange. Artist: © Kennedy Fitzgerald. All rights reserved.  

 

 

 

Calle 75 Street Tacos. Artist: © J Rod Studios. All Rights Reserved.  

 

 

The District Coffee House. Artist: © Mariel Jasso. All Rights Reserved. 

Mariel is another of the artists who has been selected by the City of Boise to participate in their Public Art Collection. She'll be designing an image on the theme of transportation for a traffic box at the corner of 10th & Grove St. Congratulations, Mariel!

TREEFORT MUSIC FEST 14 (2026)—FIVE MORE ACTS TO CATCH

Hailing from Boise, Idaho, the third time is the charm for The Other Room There who perform tunes from their recently-released “Look Alive” at Treefort Music Fest on Wednesday, March 25, 5:00PM at the Treefort Music Hall.  

As noted by the Treefort team: “The Other Room There is the solo, dream pop, indietronic project of why-it. For years, why-it has spent time in other groups building his ability to create lush soundscapes and droning tones to create meticulous sonic atmospheres along with catchy, poppy melodies. The Other Room There is a project focused on creating anthems to suburbia, anxiety, loss, and the great unknown. Pulling inspiration from electronic and indie artists of both the last 20 years and the 20 before then, The Other Room There creates music that both feels nostalgic, fresh, and unique. Now accompanied by Carsen Cranney (Moon Owl's Mages, Crush The Monster), the energy of The Other Room There shows has never been more electric.”

   

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Photo: © Hailey Jane.

Formed in 2022 on Colorado’s front range, Jesus Christ Taxi Driver is made up of Ian Ehrhart (guitar and vocals), Colin Kelly (guitar and vocals), Miles Jenkins (drums) and Will Ehrhart (bass). Known for their unrestrained, disruptive live shows that have been likened to Iggy Pop and The Cramps, Jesus Christ Taxi Driver has previously opened for Frank Black (Pixies), The Hold Steady, A Place To Bury Strangers, The Thing and more. Leaving their mark across North America, they have also performed at festivals including Treefort, Somewhere Fest and Break Out West. Fueled by the human connections they make on the road, the band has every intention of spending as little time at home this year as possible. 

In 2023, the band released their debut record “Lick My Soul” with standout tracks “STUPIDMOTHERFUCKER” and “Ding Dong The Beeves Are Dead.” In 2025, they were included in the National Independent Venue Association’s (NIVA) Live List of best independent live bands to keep an eye on. The Denver Westword frequently champions Jesus Christ Taxi Driver as one of the best bands in the scene right now. Their most recent releases include the eponymous “Jesus Christ Taxi Driver”, “Too Cold To Golf”, and “Lana Del Rey”, anticipating the release of their second album “Taxi the Rich” coming April 19, 2026 on Midtopia.

   

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For pop listeners looking for a bit more to chew on, Social Cinema’s debut “Don’t Get Lost” features a wealth of simultaneously at-odds and complementary instrumentation, whether that’s demonstrated by the band’s hard-panned, three-pronged guitar track of Gang Of Four-esque chimes exchanged among guitarists Griffin Bush, Mari Crisler and Reed Tiwald, or via the stop-start, drum-pad-aided grooves played by Logan Bush and bassist Austin Engler. Each song on “Don’t Get Lost” is ultimately concerned with stuffing in as many hooky bits as possible, which often sends the songs in unexpected directions. 

Take second track “Human Development,” which contains the elements of a normal pop song—there’s an intro, a verso and a chorus, albeit separated by several other distinct parts. Instead of returning from the chorus to a second verse, the song diverts into a maracas-infused instrument break whose only vocal part functions to bolster the song’s rhythm, not the song’s melody. It’s a delightfully adventurous move that makes the eventual explosive second chorus that much more gratifying. 

“Don’t Get Lost” is unmistakably a pop album meant to hook you in at the surface level and designed to reward you with repeated listens. Social Cinema have evolved here from their own self-prescribed characterization as a “live” band. While the live show will remain key to their identity, “Don’t Get Lost” is a full-length feat that earns them a new label: a “complete” band. Social Cinema plays Treefort Music Fest twice; first, late Thursday night, March 26, 2026 at 12:40AM at The Olympic, and then the following afternoon, Friday, March 27, 2026 on the Cyclops stage at 7:00PM.

   

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Photo: © Meg Moon

Unabashedly sapphic and iridescent with raucous abandon, The Beaches will rock the Main Stage at Treefort Music Fest on Thursday, March 26, 7:00PM. Like any gay guy with good sense I’m hoping they’ll make me an honorary lesbian; but, even if they simply can’t, I’m going to love them anyway, like all those other adoring str8ers. 

As profiled on Spotify: “The Beaches have spent the past decade building something unstoppable.

“Sisters Jordan Miller (lead vocals, bass) and Kylie Miller (guitar), along with best friends Leandra Earl (guitar, keys) and Eliza Enman-McDaniel (drums), have gone from Toronto up-and-comers to one of the biggest rock bands in Canada. 

“Their breakthrough came with ‘Blame My Ex’, a heartbreak-fueled, anthemic record that turned them into a viral sensation. It’s Platinum-certified lead single, ‘Blame Brett,’ exploded across platforms, racking up 115 million+ streams, 20 million views, and 15 weeks at #1 on Alternative Radio in Canada. The song’s success on TikTok introduced their music to a whole new wave of fans, solidifying their place in modern rock. 

“But The Beaches aren’t just a band you stream—they’re a band you experience. Known for their panty-throwing, stage-diving, no-holds-barred live shows, they bring an energy that’s as fierce as it is infectious. Their ‘Blame My Ex’ Tour proved it, selling out major venues worldwide, including their upcoming headline show at Budweiser Stage (Toronto)—a 16,000-capacity venue sold out three months in advance. 

“Now, with sold-out tours, major festival slots, and a sound that blends raw emotion with unapologetic fun, The Beaches have become more than just a band—they’re a movement. Loud, fearless, and completely in their own lane.” 

Their most recent 2026 releases include “I Ran (So Far Away)” and a live recording of “Silver Springs.” Getting rowdy with G Flip, The Beaches also have a new video for “Lez Go.” Otherwise, I’m offering up three of my favorites from 2025’s “No Hard Feelings.”

   

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Whether irony or mere wistfulness my mind has circumambulated around Father John Misty’s (sold-out launch of his 2026 tour at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco, which grounded so many of the entertainments of my youth and mid-age. Granted, I’m not sure I would have been able to afford the tickets plus service charges recently required by the Castro, so I am all the more appreciative that I will get to hear Father John Misty (née Josh Tillman) on the Main Stage at Treefort Music Fest on Sunday, March 29, 2026 at 8:20PM. Rather than bemoan a bygone era, I celebrate my current opportunities. 

Father John Misty has recently released a three-song EP, “The Old Law” with its eponymous track, and repeats of two tunes from his sixth album 2024’s “Mahāśmaśāna”, whose title refers to the Sanskrit word Mahāśmaśāna, meaning "great cremation ground". Tillman chose the word after reading it in Bruce Wagner's 2006 novel Memorial and feeling inspired by it, "Just visually, it has all these sha-na-nas and ha-ha-has in it. With the record, there’s a lot in there about the self and about identity, and I think just the micro and the macro scale of endings." 

Tillman commissioned artist Joe Roberts to do some collages for the album, he also sent along a few doodles. One of them was made while Roberts was listening to the record, Tillman thought they looked like biblical angels, and chose it as the cover. Roberts almost did not send the drawing due to an accidental "red splotch" of paint.

 

TREEFORT MUSIC FEST 14 (2026)—FIVE ACTS TO CATCH

If the hundreds of bands offered at this year’s edition of Treefort Music Fest has you schedule-addled, here are five acts I recommend to get you started. 

As ever, Treefort’s line-up is amazing, not the least of which because they’ve scored Brookyn, New York’s Geese for a main stage 8:50PM performance on Saturday, March 28, 2026. 

As Treefort synopsizes: “New York City’s Geese return with their universally-acclaimed third studio album, ‘Getting Killed’. After being approached by Kenneth ‘Kenny Beats’ Blume at a music festival, Geese tracked the album in his LA studio over the course of ten fast-paced days. With scant time for overdubbing, the finished project emerges as something of a chaotic comedy, shambolic in structure but passionately performed, informed by an exacting vision. Garage riffs are layered upon Ukrainian choir samples; hissing drum machines pulse softly behind screeching guitars; strange, lullaby-esque songs are interspersed with furious, repetitive experiments. With ‘Getting Killed,’ Geese balances a disarming new tenderness with an intensified anger, seemingly trading their love of classic rock for a disdain for music itself.” 

Geese performed on “Saturday Night Live” recently and here are two songs from that set, “Au Pays Du Cocaine” and “Trinidad.”

   

Geese next appeared on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” with their tune “Taxes.”

  

Finally, if that’s not enough for you, here’s their full session for “From the Basement.”

  

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With his new album “Rock and A Hard Place” having dropped in mid-February, British musician George van den Broek (performing under the alias Yellow Days) is one of the acts on Treefort Music Fest’s Main Stage that I’m most excited to catch (Sunday, March 29, 5:00PM). Treefort cribs from Marcy Donelson: 

 “Noted for throaty, yearning vocals that accompany his swimmy indie soul-pop, Yellow Days is the performance alias of British musician George van den Broek. After some early releases during his teenage years, he began to gain traction with 2017’s full-length ‘Is Everything Okay in Your World?’. Switching locales to Los Angeles, his follow-up, ‘A Day in a Yellow Beat’, appeared in 2020. Two years later, the pandemic-inspired EP trilogy ‘Slow Dance & Romance’, ‘Apple Pie’, and ‘Inner Peace’ was steeped in psychedelic soul. 

“Born in Manchester, England, and raised in Haslemere, van den Broek’s musical endeavors began when he got a guitar for Christmas at the age of 11. With influences that include Ray Charles, Mac DeMarco, and Thundercat, he started releasing stand-alone singles as a teen in late 2015. His debut EP, ‘Harmless Melodies’, arrived in November 2016. Yellow Days continued to release periodic singles in 2017, some of which appeared on his debut LP, ‘Is Everything Okay in Your World?’, that October. It featured a guest spot by hip-hop artist Rejjie Snow. 

“Early the next year, ‘Gap in the Clouds,’ from his first EP, reached a broader audience when it accompanied the trailer for the second season of Donald Glover’s show Atlanta. Yellow Days followed up in April 2018 with the single ‘The Way Things Change’ and a week’s worth of club shows in the U.S. that quickly sold out, before continuing the tour in Europe. 

 “The musician’s sophomore effort arrived in 2020: titled ‘A Day in a Yellow Beat’, the project was written and recorded primarily in L.A., with van den Broek sourcing new inspiration from local collaborators. Yellow Days’ next undertaking was a set of three self-produced EPs released throughout 2022 and consisting of a combined 17 songs. ‘Slow Dance & Romance’ began the series in April, with ‘Apple Pie’ following in July, and ‘Inner Peace’ closing out the project in September. Conceived and recorded during the early part of the COVID-19 pandemic, they were said to represent a catalog of his ‘mindset in lockdown’.” 

Promotion for “Rock and A Hard Place” has involved a series of stylish black-and-white stagings that lean into nostalgic cinema. Judging from these, Yellow Days promises to be one of the most satisfying acts in Treefort’s stellar line-up. Ben Tibbits interviews Yellow Days for Wonderland.

   

 

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Photo: © Josh Farria / The Seattle Times

I’ve long described Treefort Music Fest as a discovery festival and I mean that not only in terms of being introduced to bands and performers, but equally exposed to multiple genres of music, because if you think Treefort is just about psychedelia and rap, you’re misinformed. One of the best acts around is on the opening night lineup at the Treefort Music Hall: jazz drummer Kassa Overall, whose liquid and lambient arrangements will inspire your mind to fly. Participating in a New York Times survey conducted by Giovanni Russonello, fellow drummer and Grammy Award-winner Terri Lyne Carrington described Overall as a “pre-eminent style bender and blender, successfully juxtaposing genres through his production expertise and use of melodic and harmonic forms that deftly integrate the new with the old.” 

That bending and blending is evident on his latest album CREAM (2025), where the acronymic title track “C.R.E.A.M. (Cash Rules Everything Around Me)” artfully reworks Wu Tang-Clan’s original; “Back That Azz Up” covers Juvenile; and “Nuthin But A ‘G’ Thing” leans right into Dr. Dre. All three tracks were recently performed at The Cubes, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

  

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Photo: © Jasmin Valcarcel

Son Little (née Aaron Livingston) has dropped his new album “Cityfolk” a few days before the launch of Treefort and so Treeforters will be some of the first to hear these fresh tracks from his “hymnal stew” when Little appears at the Treefort Music Hall on opening night, Wednesday, March 25, 2026, 9:00PM. He’s released three preview tracks—“Be Better”, “Cherry” and “In Orbit.”  

Described by Treefort as “the polyglot translator and rightful torchbearer of the celebrated musical tradition known as rhythm and blues”, Son Little’s curiosity about his ancestry has led him on a journey throughout the American South, resulting in “Cityfolk”. The West coast born, Northeast-bred musician finetunes his craft here and speaks for those enduring tribulations about finding their place in the world. 

Now living outside of Atlanta, Livingston attributes the development of “Cityfolk” to going even further south to record in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, in January 2025. It was there that Little, whose past collaborations include The Roots and RJD2, connected with two-time Grammy-winning musician and Alabama Shakes band member Ben Tanner to flesh out sketches of songs that he’d crafted through epiphanies about his family’s roots. Already having an understanding of his father’s side, Little views his maternal line as a “mystery unfolding,” but it was in Shoals that the stars aligned, both through retracing his history and formulating an organic chemistry with Tanner. 

The three preview tracks offered here anticipate the remaining tracks on “Cityfolk”, which according to his website will include “sounds that embody the spirit of ancestral folklore. The banjo is strummed at a rhythmic church-stomping pace on ‘Rabbit,’ where Little strives for peace amid societal upheaval. ‘Whip the Wind’ grooves with Afro-Latin polyrhythms, its hook driven by a constant shaker and a silky synth melody that recalls early-1970s Stevie Wonder. But the song sticks to Little’s true form: despite its danceable feeling, the song is a call to recognize the human cost of power before it’s too late. The musician’s message becomes even more urgent on ‘Paper Children,’ an outcry for those downtrodden and forced into inherited hardships. ‘Time has come to testify, there’s another Trail of Tears tonight,’ Little wails on the song’s second verse.” 

I’m ready to testify. How ‘bout you?

   

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Photo: © Holly Andres

I have so many filmic memories of San Francisco, including a performance by tUnE-yArDs at the 55th San Francisco International Film Festival (2012) where they accompanied projections of Buster Keaton’s shorts. That was a thoroughly entertaining event. 

Now I get a second chance when tUnE-yArDs takes over the Treefort Music Hall stage on Wednesday, March 25, 2026, 10:30PM. As outlined by Treefort Music Fest: 

“Formed by Merrill Garbus in 2006, Tune-Yards has become a name synonymous with creativity and forward motion. Known for explosive performances, surprising song structures, and danceable rhythms, their music also highlights connections between song and social consciousness. The New York Times praised their debut album, ‘BiRd-BrAiNs’, as ‘a confident do-it-yourselfer’s opening salvo,’ and relentless touring established Garbus as a commanding live performer. “Garbus stepped into the producer role with 2011’s ‘w h o k i l l’, a bold and sonically inventive album that earned critical acclaim, including the #1 spot on The Village Voice’s Pazz and Jop poll. By 2021’s ‘sketchy’, Garbus and bassist Nate Brenner had solidified their partnership, creating a fully collaborative work. The duo released their sixth studio record, ‘Better Dreaming’ in 2025 [followed by EP ‘Tell the Future With Your Body’]. “Tune-Yards also excels in scoring, contributing to Boots Riley’s ‘Sorry to Bother You, I’m A Virgo’, and the forthcoming ‘I Love Boosters’. Their artistry continues to expand across music, film, and television.”

 

LED—LOOK, MOM! (2026)

Photo: Michelle Bliss

The 15th-century English proverb and cultural norm that children should be "seen and not heard" (particularly young girls) predates the field of psychology by several hundred years. Once established, psychology shifted to an opposite view—valuing the child's voice, agency, and internal experience—as it evolved from a study of "mini-adults" to the modern scientific study of child development. 

By the mid-20th Century developmental psychologists like Jean Piaget and Erik Erikson revolutionized the field by showing that children are active participants in their own learning and development, not passive recipients of adult instruction. By the late 20th Century up into our current moment focus has shifted heavily toward child agency. Researchers now study children as "social actors" who contribute to their families and cultures. By recognizing children as "agents"—capable of shaping their own worlds—psychologists argue that children must be encouraged to express their thoughts, emotions, and perspectives to thrive. As individuals with unique perspectives children require active participation in their own lives to develop into healthy, capable adults. 

Commensurately, adults—seeking to retain nourishment and inspiration from their childhood play—also require being seen in order to fully express and individuate themselves as, perhaps best registered in the witty response to the salutation “it’s good to see you” with “it's good to be seen" (commonly attributed to electrical engineer and avid wordsmith Frederick "Fritz" Pritzlaff, inventor of the gyroscope). 

What performer—actor, dancer, musician—doesn’t rely on being seen? What performer doesn’t glean from applause the energy required so that “the show must go on”? As Joni Mitchell has lyricized, they’re anxious with the tears of the actor who fears for the laughter’s sting. We all—children and adults alike—need affirmation, confirmation, attention, approval and encouragement in order to become and fulfill ourselves. 

This theme, expressed in varied and mirthful nuance, runs through LED Dance Company’s first creation of the 2026 season—“Look, Mom!” LED is shorthand for Lauren Edson, the company’s Artistic Director and co-founder with Andrew Stensaas, LED’s Creative Director and Composer, the husband-and-wife team who have choreographed the delight of imagination into the heart of Boise’s cultural scene. And it appears their children are lending influence to LED’s project. As Lauren and Andrew reveal, their children “often burst into the kitchen, desperate for attention, shouting, ‘Look, Mom!’ or ‘Look, Dad!’ ” They describe this as “both a plea and invitation, a call to be seen, and to be present” and they wonder if their own journeys into performance and the refuge they have found on stage began with that same early calling of child to parent. 

Photo: Michelle Bliss

This inspired sentiment informs “Look, Mom!” from its opening monologue performed by Michael Arellano in the DIXON’s lobby who confesses he required attention from his family as a young boy and that this thirst led him to become a dancer, which he unabashedly asks us to appreciate by exclaiming “WOW!’ as he whirls and leaps into the air. Telling is that—even after doing so—he sadly admits, “It’s not enough.” Ushering the audience into the main theater and to their seats, Arellano continues his upstaging, grandstanding and scene stealing—much to the irritated chagrin of his fellow dancers—to comic effect. Thus, with laughter and the company’s earnest desire to impress and entertain, “Look, Mom!” borrows from the French clown tradition, a sophisticated blend of stylized theatricality and social commentary rooted in the physical comedy of commedia dell'arte and bouffon. 

Laminating Chaz Gentry’s expressionistic lighting design and Jessica Nebecker’s minimalist and serviceable drapery with Chad Ethan Shohet’s evocative shadow projections enhances the dancers’ routines. Furthering the ambiance of a 1920s Parisien circus, Chanté Hamann’s colorful costuming adds collar ruffs and wrist flourishes to heighten the dancers’ gestures and to distinguish them one from the other. Mention must be made of the startling soundscapes created by Andrew Stensaas whose cracklings and crunchings add shock and value to disjointed movements by the ensemble. 

My favorite sequence was a parade of the dancers in a wandering circle set to the tune of Django Rheinhardt’s “Bel Mir Bist Du Schön” (“My Dear, Mr. Shane”). With the angled throw of Gentry’s lighting, it elicited the glamorous if decadent atmosphere of the silent movie era. 

Another notable pas de deux between Arellano and Marcel Mejia started out with Arellano counting out his steps, teaching them to Mejia, who then improvises and comes up with a count and steps of his own; a rather brilliant demonstration of the risks, frustrations and challenges of creative collaboration. 

But nothing engendered as much surprise and gentle beauty as Edson appearing in the program’s final sequence as the mother dressed in Hamann’s flowing white Pierrotesque smock touching and blessing each and every one of her dancers, reminding this reviewer of Yeats’ lovely phrase: “It seemed, so great my happiness, / That I was blessed and could bless." 

LED is, indeed, a blessing.

BAMPFA / “Psychedelia & Cinema”—Embrace of the Serpent (El abrazo de la serpiente, 2015)

Pacific Film Archive’s program “Psychedelia & Cinema”, curated by Kate MacKay, was organized with the support and participation of Tony Martin and Maya Acharya at the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics (BCSP), and—as outlined by MacKay—"presents a kaleidoscopic array of movies that explore expanded or enhanced consciousness, psychedelic experiences, and numinous encounters. Realized through psychoactive substances, meditation, deprivation, or other means, these experiences have been an important element of many cultures for millennia and have more recently become the object of scientific study, as well as being used for both therapy and recreation. Cinema, the 'Seventh Art,' is uniquely suited to explore altered and non-ordinary states of consciousness. From cinema’s earliest flickers to the present day, filmmakers have used techniques from montage to multiple exposures, lens distortion to animation and CGI, to create mystical visions and ecstatic journeys into inner and outer space.” 

BCSP advances psychedelic discovery for the public good. The center supports rigorous, interdisciplinary inquiry and meaningful public pathways into science, journalism, applied research and policy, and the culture and community around psychedelics. 

Included within the “Psychedelia & Cinema” line-up and screening Saturday, March 7, 2026, 7:00PM is one of the films I consider most memorable from this past decade: Ciro Guerra’s Embrace of the Serpent (El abrazo de la serpiente, 2015), introduced by Dr. Sylvestre Quevedo, Chairman of the Board and Scientific Director of the Open Mind Collective, San Francisco, and Research Physician, at the Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics, Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, UC Berkeley. 

As laid out in BAMPFA’s program note: “Embrace of the Serpent centers on Karamakate, an Amazonian shaman and the last surviving member of his people, who assists two scientists, forty years apart, as they navigate the Colombian Amazon in search of the rare yakruna plant. The silky 35mm black-and-white cinematography lends the images—filmed over seven weeks with the cooperation of Indigenous communities in the jungles of Vaupés—a timeless quality. The film evokes the deep, ongoing consequences of colonialism, the fragility of Indigenous cultural knowledge, and the complex relationships between Western science, spirituality, and the natural world.”  

Yakruna—albeit a fictional, sacred plant—serves as a central plot device in Embrace of the Serpent. It is portrayed as a rare, highly potent hallucinogenic plant sought by explorers for its healing and mystical properties. Inspired by the real-life diaries of explorers Theodor Koch-Grünberg and Richard Evans Schultes, yakruna is a conceptual creation derived from various psychotropic plants described in botanical journals, believed to cure illnesses, enable dreaming, and connect humans with nature at its roots. Yakruna represents a bridge between Western scientific pursuit and indigenous spiritual knowledge, as well as a symbol of the Amazonian ecosystem itself. 

Ciro Guerra was fêted with the Director to Watch Award when Embrace of the Serpent screened at the 2016 Palm Springs International Film Festival. I was delighted when Guerra accepted my invitation to breakfast so we could discuss the film. Our conversation was published as a web exclusive at Cineaste. That publication garnered me a personal invitation to the 56th edition of the Cartagena International Film Festival (FICCI56) where Embrace of the Serpent was programmed into FICCI56's popular sidebar "Cinema Under the Stars", a non-competitive section of the festival during which the streets of Cartagena's Historic Center were transformed into a giant outdoor movie theater. Thanks to the sponsorship of EPM, RCN Radio Televisión, Bigvideo TV and the IPCC, the public had the opportunity to celebrate Embrace of the Serpent against a star-studded backdrop. FICCI56 also arranged for the hearing and visually impaired to catch a special screening of the film at Multiplex Cine Colombia Plaza Bocagrande. Further, Guerra taught a master class to filmmakers attending FICCI56. 

I had opportunity to watch Embrace of the Serpent yet again at the 38th edition of the Mill Valley Film Festival where Brionne Davis—the actor who portrayed Evan (the film's characterization of American ethnobotanist Richard Evans Schultes)—fielded questions from the film's festival audience.

MEDUZA (2025)—Review

A little over halfway into Roc Morin’s essay documentary Meduza (2025) there’s footage of a murmuration of birds whose wavering shape seems to set the template for the film’s narrative meanderings, which are stylistically reminiscent of Werner Herzog’s eccentric documentaries but without Herzog’s quirky narration. The association is enhanced by Morin having produced Herzog’s Family Romance LLC (2019).  

Meduza offers an intriguing cast of characters ranging from war-torn villages in the Ukraine to the Ecuadorian rainforest, with stops along the way in Hawaii, Japan, and India, rhyming and braiding themes throughout to create a composite construction evocatively and crisply shot by Morin and atmospherically scored by Filip Mitrović. Production marks are high. Meduza’s digital release on Prime has been tied to the 4-year anniversary of the war in Ukraine. 

Recent projects such as Porcelain War (2024) and 2000 Meters to Andriivka (2025) have addressed the tragic circumstances visited upon Ukraine through varying cinematic perspectives and techniques. Similar to Porcelain War, Meduza’s central character, Pavlo Aldoshyn (nicknamed “Pasha”) is an artist conscripted into military service, an actor who had been cast to portray a sniper in a film prior to Russia’s 2022 invasion who then channeled that skill set into becoming an actual sniper in an artillery brigade on the war’s front line. 

Morin and his producer and longtime film collaborator Leïla Wolf met Pavlo when he was on brief leave from the front line. They were struck by what they perceived to be Pavlo’s unique spiritual perspective of himself in the context of the war. They set out to witness and chronicle his psychological transformation through a series of interviews conducted in Kyiv, Kharkhiv, and near the front line over the first two years of the war. Perhaps because he was already an actor, Pavlo is able to dramatically articulate his inner life, his dreams, and his spiritual mythology to provide the film’s core; but, with all due respect to his military service, this proves a problematic core in that—as they say—his acting technique shows. Several of his monologues feel rehearsed and staged, weakening the film’s authentic effort to express the intimate cost of war. 

This doesn’t demean, however, the astute and fascinating amplifications explored by director Morin. It’s in those (again) Herzogian amplifications where Meduza is most effective though it does raise a chicken-and-egg inquiry as to whether Morin pursued external themes to underscore Pavlo’s inner life or whether inversely the external footage influenced Pavlo’s interviewed monologues? Either way, the effort to meld the two is an admirable and noteworthy construction. 

Some of the film’s images—such as the wavering murmuration of birds previously mentioned—are hypnotic. The opening sequence of the forging of artillery shells connotes a choreographed industrial beauty that sadly leads to the devastating destruction of villages bombed beyond recognition. Morin has a gifted eye, however, and manages to sift abstracted beauty out of the debris of war while we listen to lovely accordion music played by Fedor, a villager from Zaporhizia, Ukraine. 

Morin also has a literary gift for metaphor. “Meduza” is a word used in various Slavic (e.g., Russian, Croatian, Serbian), Baltic, and Romance languages that translates into “jellyfish” and, indeed, jellyfish serve as a recurring metaphor throughout the film. Voiced over the image of jellyfish washed upon a shore, Pavlo ruminates: “When you see a jellyfish on the shore you have a strange attitude towards it. You don’t know what it is. It is non-water. It is non-animal. It is non-entity. And your attitude towards that point on the shore is exactly that: non-existence.” Though that statement is problematically vague, Morin then centers the metaphor by segueing into a sequence where Artyom lierusalymskyi, Director of Museum of Jellyfish in Kyiv, Ukraine rhapsodizes on the marine animal in scientific detail. 

Meduza next profiles Yoshinori Hasegawa, Kazusa DNA Research Institute in Chiba, Japan who seeks to unravel the phenomenon of immortality, using advanced machines to study the DNA of organisms. He expounds on how jellyfish regenerate in response to stimuli. Their cells grow younger and retract into an orb, which then becomes a new jellyfish. 

From there we meet Dmytro Moldovanov, a painter in Parutyne, Ukraine, 10 km from the front line, whose witness of the war’s atrocities underscores his creative necessity to counter destruction with art. When the Russians blow up a nearby hydroelectric plant flooding the local zoo and drowning the animals in their cages, Moldovanov channels his sorrow into painting the departing souls of the animals as jellyfish with their tendrils like wings. 

The tagline on Meduza’s theatrical poster quotes Pavlo: “A sniper takes the final portrait.” Whether killing a hare, or the enemy, Pavlo apologizes to the life he is taking even as he takes aim through the reticle’s cross on the scope of his rifle, which he compares to the lens of a camera. The crosshairs provide a focused intersection of two paths, two lives. Having been a photographer in his civilian life, Pavlo admits that his experience as a sniper has induced mixed feelings about the camera’s lens. The only difference between a photographer and a sniper, he explains, is that the sniper takes the final photograph. When a sniper gets his target in the crosshairs of his rifle, he is taking the last portrait of that person. 

Morin then segues to Los Angeles art collector Maher Ahmad who combs flea markets and antique stores for photo albums from the past which he understands to be the photographs that finalize an otherwise unknown life. He remembers his partner of ten years succumbing to AIDS and how he felt compelled to take a photograph of his corpse in the body bag being carried out of the hospital: again, the final photograph. 

Meduza endeavors to suggest hope and remedy in the face of Russia’s tragic onslaught on Ukraine, whether through a belief in reincarnation among the members of the Utekar family in India who are convinced that the soul of their patriarch has entered the body of his grandson coincidentally born on the same day. Or the alternate theory of reincarnation proposed by Nanki Callara, a native of the Achuar Territory, Ecuador, who believes that humans reincarnate as birds, trees, rain, fire. Or the ornithological perspective that recorded memory survives extinction, as with the account relayed by Patrick Hart of the LOHE Bioacoustic Lab in Hilo, Hawaii of the Kauaʻi ʻōʻō bird, which was declared extinct after the last remaining male was recorded singing a mating call to a female that never answered. Still, there remains a bird that imitates the call of the Kauaʻi ʻōʻō. The hope is that something we have lost will somehow come back to us, perhaps in a different form. 

That shifting of form receives the bookend treatment in Meduza from the opening sequence of the forging of artillery missiles to a performance of “The Voice of Hell’s Arrow” by composer Roman Grygoriv of Kyiv, Ukraine who plays a repurposed MLRS BM-27 Uragan Missile with a bow backed by a chamber orchestra. 

Perhaps that will be the score for the requisite question: after the war is over, will Pavlo be able to be the man, the artist, he was before the war?