Michael James Tapscott

The Only Dance There Is

Upon reaching the summer of my years, the time for watering and weeding, I’d determined that breaking bad habits required an equal or greater set of rigorous good habits. So I woke up at 5:30 in the morning to begin a somewhat unwavering schedule of TM, yoga, daily reading, tending to the yard, working on music, drinking half-caf, general monetary laboring, TM again, cooking dinner, rinsing, repeating. Another band was finished, friends were caravaning out of town, and the old gears of life had been belayed, but I found small joys in the old and new; harmonizing with myself, nylon string guitars and synthesizers, Being Ram Dass and John McPhee’s The Pine Barrens, low-stakes instrumentals, tambourines, hand claps and pianos. The Only Dance There Is was recorded from late 2020 to early 2021 at my apartment in Oakland.

Tracklist:

1. What Used To Be A Pine Forest

2. Don’t Reveal The Ending

3. Fortune Bay

4. The Forced Labor Camp

5. Michael’s 19th Nervous Breakdown

6. Conrad

7. Baba Ram Dass

8. Aerotropolis

9. December 33rd

Contributors: Jeff Moller, Raphi Gottesman, Yea-Ming Chen, Isaac Edwards, Andrew Kenower, Bob Drake

2021, self-released

Format: Digital

Available to stream on: Bandcamp; YouTube; and Spotify