Michael Garrison - Dimensions (2025)

“Dimensions” is the final release in Tenorio Cotobade’s digital reissue series of Michael Garrison’s discography. Compiled from extra tracks that Michael included in the CD versions of his early albums and compilations, it represents another essential chapter of his legacy in electronic music.

It could be said that Michael Garrison existed on the periphery of cosmic electronic music. Working in Bend, Oregon, he wasn’t part of a self-sustaining music community in his native USA. As an outlier whose contemporaries were primarily located in Germany and France, he released eleven albums between 1979 and 1998 on his own Windspell imprint. In the era of instant internet access, these records are ripe for reappraisal.

Michael’s work consistently evokes cosmic ecstasy. His music conveys escape from earthly bonds and safe passage to a realm of calm and freedom.

After the release of his debut LP, “In The Regions Of Sunreturn”, Ariola licensed the rights to release Garrison’s work in Europe, where his reputation grew. The follow-up album, “Prisms”, is now regarded as a classic in the pantheon of post-kosmische musik. Drawing comparison with the finest work of Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze and Jean-Michel Jarre, Michael’s music received a warm welcome in Central Europe, a world away from his Oregonian home. In 1996, recognition came from fellow West Coast musician DJ Shadow, who sampled the track ‘Airborn’ (from the 1982 album “Eclipse”) on his ‘High Noon’ single.

Over the course of his career, Michael Garrison morphed and melded analogue and digital technology on a succession of spaced-out, ever-evolving recordings. This progress came to a tragic end with his early death in 2004, aged only 47. As the story of electronic music is told and retold, Garrison’s work is overdue admission into the expanding collective consciousness.