Meadow Creek turns into a mountain village this weekend — and one of Saturday’s early sets comes from a producer who just turned his grandfather’s forest into an album.
Written by Eric B. Thornton
Most festivals sell you a field. Yahn Dawn sells you a valley. The grounds at Meadow Creek sit in Buena Vista, Colorado, at close to 8,000 feet, hemmed in by the Collegiate Peaks and cut through by a swimming hole that, by mid-afternoon last year, had become a flotilla of paddleboards, rented rafts and one very committed guy on a pink air mattress. Gates open today for the second edition, and for the first time Pretty Lights has stretched his own gathering to three nights, September 18 to 20.
The weekend runs on “A Trip Thru Time,” a chronological ride through the Pretty Lights catalog aboard what the festival calls the Soundship Space Bus, built around the new album “A Trip Thru Time Fantastic.” Thursday’s Early Arrival pre-party opened it with Derek Vincent Smith and founding partner Michal Menert. Tonight belongs to LP Giobbi’s “Dead House” set and Maddy O’Neal’s bass-forward MADHAUS alias. Saturday brings Emancipator and a liquid drum & bass set from Thought Process. Sunday hands the closer to Gramatik and RJD2, with Pretty Lights capping each night himself.
What makes this one different is everything happening while the stages are quiet. The Horizon 5K returns Saturday morning with a Pride theme benefiting the Buena Vista Pride Coalition. Yoga on the sand, breathwork, sound healing and cacao ceremonies run out of two dedicated spaces, the Prismatic Playa and the Celestial Sanctuary. A free shuttle loops into downtown Buena Vista from noon until 2 a.m. The grounds are cashless. After dark, the cottonwoods get lit like a cathedral and the walk between stages becomes its own attraction.
Which brings us to the trees, and to Saturday’s most quietly loaded booking.
pheel. brought a forest with him
pheel. plays the Prismatic Playa tomorrow from 1:10 to 2:25 p.m., early enough that most of the campground will still be finding its coffee. He arrives with an album about a forest, which here is either a coincidence or a very good piece of programming.
That album is siuslaw., out August 18, and it’s named for the Siuslaw Model Forest in Acra, New York — a property dedicated to education, research and sustainable forestry that his grandfather spent 50 years building and managing. Every piece of the artwork comes from that land. The record is dedicated to him.
The story pheel. keeps coming back to happened at the funeral. A neighbor talked about an open field beside his house, and how pheel.’s grandfather had once asked to plant trees in it. “The next day my grandpa came and planted hundreds of trees there,” pheel. tells me. So he built that into the release: $10 from every Bandcamp sale to One Tree Planted, which he thought covered one tree. When he went to donate, a $1-per-tree deal was running. “So it turned into 10 trees planted per album sold,” he says. “In the first week we got 660 trees planted.” The final count came to 682.
“To me the album wasn’t meant to represent mourning or any heavy feeling like that. It’s more of a celebration of life.” — pheel.
Born in New York, based in Denver and part of the all:Lo crew, pheel. — real name Phil Gallo — builds beats out of East Coast boom bap and West Coast sound design. “When they both come together I think that’s where I’m trying to have my style sit,” he says. Grief isn’t what he was after on siuslaw.; he wanted the record to move through as many styles as his grandfather had hobbies. Lone Drum, Kuhlin, Gaddy, Yongi and Brotha Nature all turn up across it. “I’m such fans of their works that I know what they will do will be proper,” he says.
The album almost didn’t survive its own making, same as his 2023 debut, echo chamber. That one got rescued by “i’ve had it all.”; this one got rescued by “fission.,” written after a late night out with Rasp-5. “I’ll always have a deep connection with both of those tunes,” he says.
For tomorrow, he’s not chasing the peak-hour drop. “I think the setting of this festival is my favorite types of settings to play in,” he says. With an early slot, he built what he calls a “really head noddy set” — new ideas, cuts from siuslaw., old favorites. “I think this is the best version of a headnod set I’ve put together yet.”
Asked what it would look like to play siuslaw. front to back inside the Model Forest itself, no crowd, nothing but trees, he says he’s been turning it over for a trip home around a Halloween show in Troy, New York. “Kinda hard to source CDJs up there,” he admits, “but I got some ideas cooking up.”
Until then: a meadow, a river, a ring of 14,000-foot peaks, and a set built for nodding. Somewhere out east is a field of trees one man planted in a single day. His grandson just added 682 more. See you at the treeline.
Yahn Dawn 2026 runs September 18 to 20 at Meadow Creek in Buena Vista, Colorado. Tickets here. Pick up siuslaw. on Bandcamp.
Connect with pheel.: Website · Instagram · SoundCloud · Bandcamp
The Full Interview: pheel. x FRANK151
1. Let’s start with the FRANK151 tradition: you get to curate your own three-day dream festival, with one headliner closing each night — dead or alive. Who are you booking for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and why those three?
Oooo, this a great question. Friday: DJ Krush b2b DJ Koko Saturday: Danny Breaks Sunday: Quincy Jones
2. You came from the East Coast but have been part of Denver’s bass scene for about a decade now. Your music pulls from hip-hop, downtempo, glitch, and experimental bass without sitting completely inside any one of them. What did you bring with you from the East Coast, and what did Denver add to the pheel. sound?
I think the boom bap drums and the chopping of what would be a beautiful song into something dark is what inspired me the most from the East Coast sound. I think living out west has pushed me more into learning more sound design and making stuff that’s more for a dance floor. I find myself currently bouncing back and forth between these lately. But when they both come together, I think that’s where I’m trying to have my style sit. Think “dust bin.” is a great example of the combination.
3. You’ve said “siuslaw.” is dedicated to your grandfather and the Model Forest he spent 50 years building in Acra. That’s a lot to carry into an album. How do you turn something that personal into something you can play out loud in a set without it feeling too heavy for the room?
To me, the album wasn’t meant to represent mourning or any heavy feeling like that. It’s more of a celebration of life. My stuff does tend to be naturally darker. I wanted the album to show different styles of my tastes, just like the many different types of hobbies and knowledge he passed down to our family.
4. The connection to the Siuslaw Model Forest goes beyond the title, and you’re even having a tree planted for every Bandcamp purchase. Was the environmental side of the project something you envisioned from the beginning, or did that grow naturally as you started building the album around your grandfather’s legacy?
The idea for it really sparked at his funeral. One of his neighbors had a really inspiring eulogy and talked about this open field he had at his house. My grandfather came and asked him about planting trees for him in that field, he accepted, and the next day my grandpa came and planted hundreds of trees there. That story really inspired me to try and follow in those footsteps, and Zone Drums told me about the One Tree Planted program, and their mission was so closely related to his, so it seemed like a great pairing. When doing my original research, I read about it being $10 to plant a tree through them, so I allocated $10 of each Bandcamp sale to that program. After the album was out, I went to go donate and saw they had a $1-per-tree-planted deal going on, so it turned into 10 trees planted per album sold. In the first week we got 660 trees planted. As of writing this, the sale is over, so we are at a total of 682 trees planted.
5. This is your sophomore LP, three years after “echo chamber.” When you listen to those two records back-to-back, where do you hear the biggest evolution in yourself, not just technically as a producer, but in what you want a pheel. record to actually feel like?
To me, I can hear a big growth in the mixdowns, sound design, and production. I still think there is a lot of room to grow in all those, but hearing the progress over the years does make me feel like I’m on the right track to get to where I want to be with production. I feel like I learned a lot from “echo chamber.,” and I did have a very similar experience with both albums. While working on “echo chamber.,” I was so over hearing the tracks that I was about to scrap it. Then one night I wrote “i’ve had it all.” and it felt like the missing piece to the album. For this one I was in the same boat, but one night Rasp-5 was at my house and we went to see ours samples at Cervs and was so inspired we went home to write a tune. “fission.” is the tune that came out of that late-night session, and I also feel like it saved this album for me personally. I’ll always have a deep connection with both of those tunes.
6. You’ve got Kuhlin, Gaddy, Lone Drum, Yongi, and Brotha Nature appearing across “siuslaw.” When you’re making music that comes from somewhere this personal, how do you decide where another artist fits into the story without losing that intimacy?
I think I trust every single one of them to come correct on anything we work on. They are all such good friends, some old friends, some new. I didn’t look at it as “this needs to fit something specific.” I think it was more, “I’m such fans of their works that I know what they will do will be proper,” and I can’t thank them enough for being a part of this project.
7. You’re playing Yahn Dawn in Colorado, surrounded by mountains, on a lineup built around Pretty Lights and a community that really values that intersection of electronic music, live musicianship, and nature. Considering you just made an entire album inspired by a forest, this one feels almost suspiciously well-timed, haha. What are you planning for the Yahn Dawn set, and how much does a setting like that change what you want to play?
I think the setting of this festival is my favorite type of setting to play in. With it being a set to start off the day, I put together a really head-noddy set. Got a grip of new ideas, combined with some songs from the album and some of my old favorite tunes. I’ve been going over it for a couple weeks now, and I think this is the best version of a head-nod set I’ve put together yet.
8. If you could play “siuslaw.” front to back inside the actual Model Forest in Acra — no crowd, no stage, just the trees — what does that show look like?
I’ve thought about doing something like this when I head back home for the show in Troy, NY, on Halloween. Kinda hard to source CDJs up there, but I got some ideas cooking up, so we’ll see how this comes together.