SFR Picks: July 3, 2024

Your New Muse

Meow Wolf co-founder lives on through the music of Lyra Muse

If you ask most folks about Meow Wolf, many will first note the arts corporation’s visual aesthetic. For singer and multi-instrumentalist Lyra Muse, though, Meow Wolf is also the root of her music career. If Muse had to describe her music simply, she’d call it pop, electric and sometimes experimental. But her extensive background as a classically trained violinist has opened the door to an enigmatic sound that can’t neatly fit into any one category.

“Something somebody told me the other day is I’m the full embodiment of the dark feminine,” she tells SFR. “It’s delicate, but it’s also heavy-hitting.”

Muse is a mother and music teacher from Cincinnati who holds a degree in violin performance. She moved to Santa Fe in 2019 to work as an assistant for one of Meow Wolf’s design teams. That’s also when she met late Meow Wolf co-founder Matt King, with whom she worked while composing music for one of the exhibitions at Meow Wolf’s Convergence Station in Denver.

King introduced Muse to music effects pedals—think sound augmentations like distortion, delay, flange, chorus and the all-important loop station, the last of which allowed Muse to layer multiple live tracks over one another and become the “one-woman act” she is today.

“Everything just changed for me,” she says, after discovering the myriad audio options pedals can afford. “My heart soared, my gut got excited.”

Muse and King’s artistic relationship continued during the pandemic through a collaborative and improvisational songwriting practice. King also gave Muse her first pedals to help fuel the duo’s creative drive.

“He had a lot and he literally just wanted to play music,” Muse says, adding that, if not for the timing and circumstances of the pandemic, the project wouldn’t have happened.

After King’s death in 2022, Muse says, she started expanding upon the songs, making them her own. Still, King’s impact remains.

“It’s been hard for me to separate where my project starts,” Muse explains, “and he ends.”

The result? Muse’s new song “We Come Out of the Mud,” which she wrote with King in 2020 and is set to release on Friday, July 5. The ethereal ballad depicts a wistful and evocative tone while conveying the stark and brooding side of Muse’s personality. Hear its debut when Muse takes the stage at Ghost this Saturday to release her new single “We Come Out of the Mud.” (Lauren Lifke)

Lyra Muse Album Release: 8 pm Saturday, July 6. Ghost, 2889 Trades West Road, instagram.com/ghost_santafe

Explosions in the Sky

With the recent South Fork/Salt fires in Ruidoso still fresh in the news, there’s no time like the present to think long and hard about whether it’s worth it to set off fireworks in the streets. If you simply must experience explosives, the Kiwanis Club of Santa Fe’s annual Fourth of July event at the Santa Fe Place mall should scratch the itch. With food trucks, music from The Brujo Trio, Brandon Post and more—plus the promise of safe pyrotechnics from the same people who safely bring us the burning of Zozobra each year—it’s precisely the kind of place to take your family and know you won’t scare any dogs. (Alex De Vore)

City of Santa Fe July Fourth Celebration: 4-10 pm Thursday, July 4. Free. Santa Fe Place, 4250 Cerrillos Road, burnzozobra.com

Various Vintages

Look, we get it—it’s summer, you’re hot, wine is the only answer. OK, there are other answers, but when the living history museum that is El Rancho de las Golondrinas throws down the festival gauntlet, one heeds the call. This weekend, at the 30th Annual Santa Fe Wine Festival, find nearly two dozen wineries from across the state plying their grapey goodness, including Las Cruces’ Luna Rossa, Deming’s St. Clair, Hillsboro’s Black Range and many more. Throw in a bevy of artisanal vendors, that Las Golondrinas’ charm and you’re bound to have fun (drink lots of water). Members attend free, too! (Alex De Vore)

30th Annual Santa Fe Wine Festival: Noon-6 pm Saturday, July 6 and Sunday, July 7. $15-$25. El Rancho de las Golondrinas, 334 Los Pinos Road, (505) 471-2261

Sheer Poetry

Last time we heard from poet Natachee Momaday Gray (Kiowa Apache), she’d just released her first poetry book, Silver Box. Since then, she’s become a mom and moved out to Coyote, near Abiquiú, but this week she’ll be back in Santa Fe for a reading alongside poet Jill Prendergast at Teatro Paraguas. “We’re keeping it super raw and reading to each other from our personal diaries,” Momaday Gray says. “It’s going to be our very, very personal diaries—unfinished thoughts, unpolished pieces that are not necessarily ever going to be published.” Momaday Gray also says she’s got a pair of new manuscripts in the works, including a hybrid poetry/cookbook. (ADV)

Journal Entries w/Natachee Momaday Gray and Jill Prendergast: 5 pm Sunday, July 7. Free. Teatro Paraguas, 3205 Calle Marie, (505) 424-1601

Editor’s note: An earlier version of the Lyra Muse pick stated that Muse composed music for Meow Wolf’s Santa Fe location, The House of Eternal Return when Muse’s compositions were actually for the company’s Denver location.