Chris Schlarb (born July 10, 1977) is an American composer, songwriter, record producer, and guitarist. He is best known as the founder and leader of the Psychic Temple cult.

Career

In 1998, Schlarb co-founded the free improvisation ensemble Create (!). Schlarb founded the record label Sounds Are Active in 1999. Sounds Are Active released over 50 albums and produced the Sean Carnage

rockumentary A concert film or concert movie is a film that showcases a live performance from the perspective of a concert goer, the subject of which is an extended live performance or concert, by either a musician or a stand-up comedian. Early history One ...

'' 40 Bands 80 Minutes!'' (2006). Schlarb's first solo album, ''Twilight and Ghost Stories'' (2007), was the result of recordings sourced from musicians across the US as well as his own home recordings of instruments, rainfall, and traffic.

National Public Radio National Public Radio (NPR) is an American public broadcasting organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It serves as a national Radio syndication, syndicator to a network of more ...

named ''I Heart Lung's'' ''Interoceans'' (2008) one of their ''Top 5 Jazz Albums of 2008.'' In 2009, Schlarb collaborated with Swedish video game developer Nifflas on ''NightSky''. Schlarb composed forty tracks of original music for ''NightSky'' which was nominated for the

Independent Games Festival The Independent Games Festival (IGF) is an annual festival at the Game Developers Conference (GDC), the largest annual gathering of the independent video game industry. Originally founded in 1998 to promote independent video game developers, ...

’s Seumas McNally Grand Prize.

BoingBoing ''Boing Boing'' is a website, first established as a zine in 1988, later becoming a group blog. Common topics and themes include technology, futurism, science fiction, gadgets, intellectual property, Disney, and left-wing politics. It twice wo ...

described the score as “''what game music can be''”.

''Psychic Temple''

In 2010, Schlarb formed a band in

Long Beach, California Long Beach is a coastal city in southeastern Los Angeles County, California, United States. It is the list of United States cities by population, 44th-most populous city in the United States, with a population of 451,307 as of 2022. A charter ci ...

called ''Psychic Temple''. The band is called a 'cult' by members, drawing from similarities Schlarb observed between bands and cults. ''Psychic Temple'' has released 6 studio albums: ''Psychic Temple'' (

2010 The year saw a multitude of natural and environmental disasters such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the 2010 Chile earthquake. The 2009 swine flu pandemic, swine flu pandemic which began the previous year ...

), ''Psychic Temple II'' (

2013 2013 was the first year since 1987 to contain four unique digits (a span of 26 years). 2013 was designated as: *International Year of Water Cooperation *International Year of Quinoa Events January * January 5 – 2013 Craig, Alask ...

), ''Psychic Temple Plays Music For Airports'' (

2016 2016 was designated as: * International Year of Pulses by the sixty-eighth session of the United Nations General Assembly. * International Year of Global Understanding (IYGU) by the International Council for Science (ICSU), the Internationa ...

), ''Psychic Temple III'' (

), ''Psychic Temple IV'' (

2017 2017 was designated as the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development by the United Nations General Assembly. Events January * January 1 – Istanbul nightclub shooting: A gunman dressed as Santa Claus opens fire at the ...

), and ''Doggie Paddlin' Thru the Cosmic Consciousness'' (

2024 The year saw the list of ongoing armed conflicts, continuation of major armed conflicts, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Myanmar civil war (2021–present), Myanmar civil war, the Sudanese civil war (2023–present), Sudane ...

BIG EGO

In 2016, Schlarb and wife, Adriana, opened BIG EGO Studios, a recording studio located in Long Beach, California. In 2018, Schlarb founded BIG EGO Records, a record label that handles all physical distribution with a bi-annual shipment of select vinyl albums to BIG EGO annual series subscribers. Schlarb has collaborated with

Mike Watt Michael David Watt (born December 20, 1957) is an American bassist, vocalist and songwriter. He co-founded and played bass guitar for the rock bands Minutemen (1980–1985), Dos (1985–present), and Firehose (1986–1994). He began a solo ca ...

(

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(

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( Cynic), Mick Rossi ( Philip Glass Ensemble), Dave Longstreth ( The Dirty Projectors),

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, Dave Easley ( Brian Blade Fellowship), Ikey Owens (

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), Daedelus, Chad Taylor,

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Busdriver Regan Farquhar (born February 12, 1978), better known by his stage name Busdriver (sometimes stylized in all caps), is an American rapper and producer from Los Angeles. He has collaborated with rappers such as Myka 9, R.A.P. Ferreira, Nocando ...

, Awol One, Diane Cluck, Steuart Liebig, Walter Kitundu,

Soul-Junk Soul-Junk is an experimental genre-hopping Christian rock and hip hop group from San Diego, California. Background The roots of Soul-Junk began in 1993 when Glen Galloway began experimenting while touring in Europe with his rock band Trumans ...

, Liz Janes, Maria Elena Silva, Philip Glenn,

DM Stith David Michael Stith is a singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who released his first album ''Heavy Ghost'' in 2009 on the Asthmatic Kitty label. He currently resides in Rochester, New York. Stith comes from a musical family: his fathe ...

, and Talip Peshkepia.

Discography

Studio Albums

As Composer

* ''Twilight and Ghost Stories'' (

2007 2007 was designated as the International Heliophysical Year and the International Polar Year. Events January * January 1 **Bulgaria and Romania 2007 enlargement of the European Union, join the European Union, while Slovenia joins the Eur ...

) ( Asthmatic Kitty) * ''Psychic Temple'' (

) ( Asthmatic Kitty) * ''NightSky'' (

2011 The year marked the start of a Arab Spring, series of protests and revolutions throughout the Arab world advocating for democracy, reform, and economic recovery, later leading to the depositions of world leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen ...

) ( Asthmatic Kitty) * ''Psychic Temple II'' (

) ( Asthmatic Kitty) * ''Making The Saint'' (

2014 The year 2014 was marked by the surge of the Western African Ebola epidemic, West African Ebola epidemic, which began in 2013, becoming the List of Ebola outbreaks, most widespread outbreak of the Ebola, Ebola virus in human history, resul ...

) ( Asthmatic Kitty) * ''

Dropsy Edema (American English), also spelled oedema (British English), and also known as fluid retention, swelling, dropsy and hydropsy, is the build-up of fluid in the body's tissue. Most commonly, the legs or arms are affected. Symptoms may inclu ...

'' (

2015 2015 was designated by the United Nations as: * International Year of Light * International Year of Soil __TOC__ Events January * January 1 – Lithuania officially adopts the euro as its currency, replacing the litas, and becomes ...

) (

Joyful Noise Recordings Joyful Noise Recordings is an independent record label with headquarters in Indianapolis, Indiana. The label was founded in 2003 in Bloomington, Indiana by Karl Hofstetter, who also played drums on several of the label's first releases. Joyful N ...

) * ''Psychic Temple Plays Music For Airports'' (

) (

) * ''Psychic Temple III'' (

) ( Asthmatic Kitty) * ''Psychic Temple IV'' (

) (

)

With I Heart Lung

* ''Interoceans'' (

2008 2008 was designated as: *International Year of Languages *International Year of Planet Earth *International Year of the Potato *International Year of Sanitation The Great Recession, a worldwide recession which began in 2007, continued throu ...

) ( Asthmatic Kitty) * ''Between Them A Forest Grew, Trackless and Quiet'' (

) ( Sounds Are Active)

With Create (!)

* ''A Prospect of Freedom'' (

2006 2006 was designated as the International Year of Deserts and Desertification. Events January * January 1– 4 – Russia temporarily cuts shipment of natural gas to Ukraine during a price dispute. * January 12 – A stampede during t ...

) ( Sounds Are Active) * ''Liz Janes & Create (!)'' (

2005 2005 was designated as the International Year for Sport and Physical Education and the International Year of Microcredit. The beginning of 2005 also marked the end of the International Decade of the World's Indigenous Peoples, Internationa ...

) ( Asthmatic Kitty)

Filmography

Film

References

External links

BIG EGO
- Official Website
Chris Schlarb BandcampAsthmatic Kitty Artist PageJoyful Noise Recordings Artist PageInstagram
{{DEFAULTSORT:Schlarb, Chris Living people Musicians from Long Beach, California 1977 births Asthmatic Kitty artists American jazz musicians 21st-century religious leaders American bandleaders Songwriters from California American jazz composers Jazz musicians from California