By Nicholas David

A new musical experience has taken root in Gold Gate Park.

Tyler Mincey seeks to bring electronic music stylings to the outdoors with the free-to-attend event, Earthling, which he calls an “experimental outdoor listening party.”

He produced the first Earthling show in 2023 and has since brought it to Golden Gate Park’s Elk Glen Meadow twice-yearly – once in the fall and once in the spring. The fourth and most recent Earthling took place on Saturday, May 3. The experiment, for Mincey, lies not only in the music but in the gathering itself.

“There’s an underlying irony of us being in this beautiful environment that has an ambient soundscape itself and playing ambient music over a kilowatt sound system,” Mincey said, laughing over morning sound check, glancing overhead at the eucalyptus tree that shades most of the meadow.

“Definitely a conceptual throughline for everything that we’re doing is really playing with this intersection of technology and nature and thinking about where we sit as humans in that spectrum,” the Bernal Heights resident said.

Mincey, a designer and lifelong DJ, turned to ambient music – a label which he says “is feeling pretty fragile” – during the height of the pandemic. When COVID-19 restrictions began to ease, he set out to develop a communal experience for the substantially popular, if on shaky nominative ground, genre.

The modern scene, Mincey said, developed in part out of movements in the Bay Area, with origins in Mills College and the San Francisco Tape Music Center. Pauline Oliveros’ practice of “deep listening,” in which listening becomes an almost meditative act, is also influential to the Earthling project.

Earthling resists orthodoxy, though. It looks more like a lawn party than a monastery. Friends show up together with burritos in hand or beckon late arrivals to their picnic blankets. The back left corner of the audience section last month became the de facto family area, where kids roamed and played within range of parental supervision.

“I think we have a nod to those historical roots, but are really not trying to be nostalgic, but just to have another kind of social gathering,” Mincey said. “It doesn’t need to be pin drop quiet. We want people to chat and catch up, but have it feel really intimate, not like your typical music festival.”

Each iteration of the event sees a different lineup of musical acts, from both near and far. None fit neatly into genre categorizations with each producing a unique sound. West Marin band Slake, for example, opened the bill with acoustic folk instrumentation, layered over vocal harmonies and sounds of a theremin, an electronic musical instrument which is played without physical contact.

Solo artist Julius Smack followed with a conceptual performance including a fictional artificial intelligence (AI) bot. The third act – a new Oakland-based trio comprised of Sudi Wachpress, Noel Morgan and Mikey Malek – made their live debut at the event with keys, woodwind instruments, drum machines and nature sounds. For Mincey, allowing artists to develop their sound is a significant raison d’etre.

“It’s really about the architecture, making a container and a space for people to perform and really getting a sense of who they are as artists and then just giving them space to do whatever they want,” Mincey said.

Artist and gallerist Graham Woo-Holoch, who runs legacy Outer Sunset business The Last Straw, has set up shop as a vendor at Earthling since its second iteration in 2024. He sees events like Earthling as essential to the culture of the City.

“I think it’s pretty fundamental in determining a movement or a scene, having some sort of meeting point, melting pot, something that has permeability from the outside, and the ability to meet people,” he said.

Woo-Holoch said Earthling connects some of his childhood memories of growing up in the Sunset with his experience of the City as an adult.

“We’re sitting along all the trails and deer paths that I grew up riding my bike on, or, you know, sneaking out of the house (to), and it’s pretty special,” he said.

In May, Woo-Holoch brought collaborator Aaron Jacobson to showcase naturally dyed clothing under the business name Faanware. His hand-sewn cotton T-shirts hung on a clothesline between two oak trees.

“This is the kind of event that I always wish I could be involved in,” Jacobson said. “Seeing my clothing, not only in the context of the woods, but in the context of a community event – it’s not really about selling clothing. It’s just about sharing my work.”

New York artist Time Wharp’s set included droning synth harmonies, layered electric guitar, and audience participation. Another solo artist, Los Angeles-based Lionmilk, closed the set with jazzy keyboard stylings as the wind rustled the leaves in the branches above him.

As the event’s producer, Mincey takes care of the logistical work. In collaboration with the park, he’s been able to steadily increase the event’s capacity, maxing out each time; the event drew 400 people last month.

He also curates Earthling’s lineup, keeping a “wish list” of artists for future gatherings. But Mincey relies on “a small army of people behind the scenes” for many of the event’s moving parts. He has enlisted Waveworks, an AV company, for sound engineering; his friends at Companion Platform design posters and merchandise; local business Black Lockett offers floral arrangements and photographer Rick Meredith documents the event with artful compositions, bending light with a prism. That team of artisans, alongside 10 volunteers, aid Mincey in his efforts.

Those who attend or stumble upon Earthling might be quick to draw comparisons or seek lines that can be drawn back to various points in San Francisco’s culture and history. Some in the crowd dance like hippies. Others sit in meditation. Still more make small talk over the music. But the synthesis of those disparate aesthetics and technologies has allowed for something new to grow. Fitting for Golden Gate Park, where hippies and punks and folk rockers and deep listeners all once treaded their feet.

Earthling is expected to return to Elk Glen Meadow next fall. More information can be found on Instagram @earthling.fyi.