East Forest on Immersive Ambient Music, Tools for Deep Introspection, AI, and Creativity

Voices of Esalen

East Forest is a multidisciplinary artist, known by some for his 5-hour album "Music for Mushrooms," designed to accompany a psychedelic journey. Other folks may know him from his album "Ram Dass," where he created beautiful soundscapes to accompany interviews he did with Ram Dass, in fact the last known interviews ever done with Ram Dass before he passed into the next realm. Some people know him from his podcast, Ten Laws with East Forest, an extraordinary interview podcast where he talks with the likes of Duncan Trussell, Aurbrey Marcus, Danica Patrick. He has found a unique way to combine music, meditation, technology, and the experience of deep listening as a doorway, as a pathway towards acknowledging our own human essence. Its fair to say his creations are not just musical compositions; they are gateways to spiritual encounters, designed to inspire introspection. In this episode, we dive deep into his thoughts around the creative process, and get into his early days as a musician, when he was an up and coming Brooklynite around the time of Occupy Wall Street. We speak about his success, and about how success can actually make the creative process much more difficult. We talk a little bit about generative AI and how it’s coming for musicians, the ambient musicians in particular, and what can be done about it. We of course chat about his collaboration with Ram Das and how the track "Sit Around the Fire," a collaboration with Jon Hopkins, was created. I just love this dude and his commitment to simple honesty, to discipline, to ritual, to reverence, to creativity. He’s good people and a great artist. One of my most enjoyable conversations in recent memory. Check out his recent single, The Cosmic Dance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0CsBuoR-_U Photo: George Evan