AVANT-GARDE HALLOWEEN
Golden Dawn Arkestra to perform at Meow Wolf
Rose Barnett is excited for the next chapter of touring.
“We’re looking forward to coming back to Santa Fe,” she says in a recent phone interview.
Barnett and the avant-garde collective Golden Dawn Arkestra will again spend Halloween at Meow Wolf for a performance.
The collective recently wrapped up three performances at Austin City Limits Music Festival.
The group is known for combining deep grooves and cinematic textures in its music. It is working on new music for a forthcoming album.
Barnett says the visual aesthetics always have performers adorned in shimmering regal robes reminiscent of intergalactic kingdoms of yore and featuring cosmic go-go dancers.
The collective is led by Zapot Mgwana. Mgwana was born in Washington, D.C., and never knew his father. His mother worked for the Ethiopian Embassy and always told him Herman Poole Blount (Sun Ra) was his father.
When Mgwana was 9, they moved to Nigeria, where he spent most of his formative years.
He recently returned to the States and formed The Golden Dawn Arkestra, which has garnered a devoted following.
Barnett, a dancer in the group, says the collective has up to 30 members worldwide.
“Because we’re a collective, we’ve built in the flexibility,” she says. “I think it informs the diversity in the music. When we go on tour, we only have about 10 people. On this tour, we have three new members that are joining us for the first time.”
At the ACL Music Festival shows, Barnett says the collective was able to perform with many of its original members.
“It was good, because we got to combine the original group with the new members,” she says. “It was a great crossover. During those shows, audiences got to see the history of the collective.”
“Children of the Sun” is the collective’s sophomore album. It was recorded and produced by Erik Wofford.
“The album was a very diverse record, and everyone in the collective would agree it’s a world tour album, with a wide range of influences,” Barnett says. “With the new music we’ve been working on, we’re bringing it back home to creating cinematic soundscapes. I felt like the last record was a world tour of time travel. With the new album, we’re coming back to a concise message. One of the things we’re exploring in the new music is the apocalypse. Nothing could be more timely.”