Art Feynman

Blending dissipating pop structures, psychedelia, worldbeat, and cosmic folktronica adjacent to some of his work under his own name, Art Feynman is an alias for visual artist and indie singer/songwriter <a href="spotify:artist:6MUv39LOn5bz2QW4SBKE85">Luke Temple</a>. He adopted the persona of the animist musician around the time the longtime New Yorker switched coasts and settled down in California in 2016. The project's first two full-lengths, 2017's Blast Off Through the Wicker and 2020's Half Price at 3:30, were strictly solo affairs, while 2023's Be Good the Crazy Boys found <a href="spotify:artist:6MUv39LOn5bz2QW4SBKE85">Temple</a> recording his equally playful and anxious art pop live in the studio with a full band.

After <a href="spotify:artist:6MUv39LOn5bz2QW4SBKE85">Luke Temple</a> relocated to rural Northern California following two decades in New York City, he released his first Art Feynman track, a six-minute instrumental incorporating environmental sounds ("Rice"), in April 2016. Obscuring his face in promotional material, he followed it a year later with the Krautrock-influenced stand-alone single "The Shape You're In," which addressed contemporary technology and politics. Recorded with a four-track tape recorder, the full-length Blast Off Through the Wicker arrived in July 2017 on <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Western+Vinyl%22">Western Vinyl</a>, which had issued albums by both solo <a href="spotify:artist:6MUv39LOn5bz2QW4SBKE85">Temple</a> and his band <a href="spotify:artist:4WxjrOJGIngO2hJnlCeK7f">Here We Go Magic</a>. As Feynman, he toured the U.S. in support of <a href="spotify:artist:3Rj0tDHoX7C5NFq5DKIpHt">Stereolab</a>'s <a href="spotify:artist:5s8mrbpjYHWIuGYUzNTpEb">Laetitia Sadier</a>, then issued the Near Negative EP that December. The <a href="spotify:artist:6MUv39LOn5bz2QW4SBKE85">Luke Temple</a> album Both-And arrived on <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Native+Cat+Recordings%22">Native Cat Recordings</a> in 2019 before Art Feynman -- still obscuring his face in promotional artwork -- reappeared on <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Western+Vinyl%22">Western Vinyl</a> with the 2020 long-player Half Price at 3:30, another entirely solo recording.

Having lived in relative isolation for six years, <a href="spotify:artist:6MUv39LOn5bz2QW4SBKE85">Temple</a> then moved downstate to Los Angeles and recorded his third Art Feynman album live in the studio with a band. With <a href="spotify:artist:6MUv39LOn5bz2QW4SBKE85">Temple</a> describing Feynman as part of the collective consciousness struggling with everything from FOMO to potential societal collapse, he cited influences including <a href="spotify:artist:2x9SpqnPi8rlE9pjHBwmSC">Talking Heads</a>' Remain in Light, <a href="spotify:artist:5jevkWdPouBhKNpJu1DOyO">Lizzy Mercier Descloux</a>'s Mambo Nassau, and <a href="spotify:artist:2f9ZiYA2ic1r1voObUimdd">Grace Jones</a>' Private Life -- all recorded at least partly at Compass Point Studios in the Bahamas -- for 2023's Be Good the Crazy Boys. It arrived on <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Western+Vinyl%22">Western Vinyl</a> that November. ~ Marcy Donelson, Rovi