Unison is a festival I only first learned about in 2024, even though I had lived in the state in which it happens for more than three years by then. Much like Heart Nectar in Colorado and June Jam in Arizona, it's another small-scale festival with hypnotic future bass music and ecstatic dance, drawing in the same kinds of people you'd expect to find at Burning Man, that are so common in western states. As far as I know, it's the only event of its kind in the state of New Mexico.

Friday, September 6, 2024

Since I wasn't using any leave days for this, I had to miss everything happening on Thursday and most of Friday, and hightail it from Clovis to Aztec on Friday evening. I had all my Economics and Psychology assignments, which I usually did on the weekends, finished earlier in the week. After finally escaping work, I hit the road. This was going to be a long drive, and I needed to get to the venue before 10:30pm when the gates would close.

This was going to be a long drive. I was starting from Clovis, on the eastern edge of New Mexico, and my destination was next to Aztec, which is in the northwest of the state in the four-state Four Corners region. The drive was thankfully uneventful and nothing held me up. In Bernalillo, an exurb of Albuquerque, I stopped for dinner and a coffee at Starbucks while the sun was still up.

As I approached my final destination, I drove through the towns of Bloomfield and Aztec. They're rather small, but with so many such towns in the area, I could tell that a lot more people live in the Four Corners area than I ever thought.

I made it to the Tico Time resort with almost an hour to spare. I parked my car, claimed my wristband from the box office, and took a bit of a hike to get to the camping area. In the camping area, finding a spot to set up my tent was a little difficult since nearly everyone else camping there had already set up their tents. But I found a space, set my tent up in the dark, and headed into what was left of the festival that night.

Deya Dova was on the main stage when I walked in shortly after 10. I'd heard some of Deya Dova's mystical, downtempo music before and it was a perfect fit for the vibe of this festival.

One of my typically low-quality photos.

By now I was naturally looking for beer. But I quickly found out that there was no alcohol for sale! Apparently the owner of Tico Time is a teetotaler and doesn't allow alcohol sales on the property.

Well...not quite. There was a vendor selling bottles of mead and absinthe, who would let you have some free samples to help you decide what you wanted to buy. I ended up buying one bottle of absinthe and two of mead, intending to open it in my tent and smuggle some in, but never got around to this and brought them home unopened.

Right now I have to promote this producer. They were selling honey absinthe made by Spirit of the Hive, and mead made by Pixie Mead, both of whom are based in Twisp, Washington. I've recently finished off both bottles of mead, one of which was called "Freya's Tears," and they were both the best mead I've had on this side of the world. I've drunk plenty of mead from different parts of the US and they were all good, but nothing good enough as the mead I found in Germany when I lived there. Until now, that is! Pixie Mead was just as delicious and intoxicating as what I found over there.

I hung around the Pavilion stage for a little while before heading back to the tent. Since this had been a work day for me, I had been awake since six in the morning and it was now after midnight.

The night was windy and quite cold. Even wearing one of my onesies I was still cold, lying on the air mattress in my tent. And my socks weren't enough either because my feet were freezing. That night I actually had a ridiculous dream that I had been on the famously doomed ocean liner Titanic, that I had gone down with the ship, and was now lying on a chunk of debris floating in the freezing North Atlantic in the middle of the night. Just as I was thinking Well, I guess this is it, I saw lights shining around me, I thought I was about to be rescued, and then I woke up to find myself no longer in danger of dying, but still lying down in the middle of a freezing night.

Saturday, September 7, 2024

While there were several food trucks set up at Tico Time that weekend, there was a café which was a permanent fixture of the resort. That's where I got breakfast, a breakfast sandwich with cheddar, egg, and sausage on an English muffin, naturally with some coffee.

Lux Elixirs had a bar set up here. They had previously been at Heart Nectar, but unlike there, they could only sell their non-alcoholic cocktails here because of Tico Time's rules.

The second-biggest stage, the Pavilion stage had ecstatic dance going on every morning. Saturday morning, the DJ was named Yemanjo, keeping the ecstatic dancing going for two hours with hypnotic Latin-flavored beats.

Not much was happening in the early afternoon. Up the road from Tico Time there was a Speedway gas station, and I thought I'd walk there and buy a couple things that couldn't be found in the festival. Alcoholic drinks, that is. One of the things I bought was a huge can of Foster's beer, and the other was one of those small plastic bottles of Svedka vodka. The beer I drank that afternoon after getting back to the camping area, and the vodka I kept on me and added a little bit of it to every coffee I drank for the rest of the day.

Bloomurian, who I had just seen at Heart Nectar, was there too. They were on the rather small Beach stage which was near the vendors, although I didn't stay at their set for very long.

Now would be a good time to review the food selection. In addition to the café that was part of the resort, there were some great food trucks too, such as Pat Thai Food, The Mac'N Wag'N (mac & cheese), Kort (fresh fruit smoothies), and Pierogi Posse which had also been at Hulaween. From another truck I got my dinner that day, a Ninja Bowl with tofu, rice and vegetables, and curry sauce.

Most of the rest of the evening and night I was going back and forth between the main stage and the vendor tents, as well as some of the other experiences. There was even an astronomy club that had telescopes set up there. Eventually I had to go back to the food court to get some of that pierogi.

David Starfire

Side view of the main stage during Memba's set, with acrobats and fire spinners.

Opiuo

Opiuo and their orchestra closed down the main stage. On my way back to the tent I stopped for a while at the Pavilion stage for Arcturus.

Sunday, September 8, 2024

By now I'd been there for a day and a half, I would have to leave in a few more hours, and I really wished I could stay there for longer.

People swimming in the Animas River on Sunday morning. I should've brought a swimsuit. The Pavilion stage is on the right.

Like the morning before, there was a two-hour ecstatic dance set at the Pavilion, this time served by Mose and Bruna Bortolato spinning back-to-back.

Pavilion during Sunday morning's ecstatic dance

As much as I wanted to stay longer, I had a long drive ahead of me back to the other side of the state. It was between 12:30 and 1pm that I loaded up the car and set out for home.

Overall I liked this festival, and would like to go back this year or next. Because I was there for less than two days, I didn't get to experience enough of it.