bio

Hi, I'm M'Gilvry. I grew up in Sebastopol, California, playing traditional Scottish, Irish & old-time fiddle music with my family. Now I'm a musician and producer in the Bay Area, using those folk instruments plus some fancy electronic tools to make music that sounds like the past and reminds me of the future and feels sometimes like breathing underwater.

A couple years ago I built a straw bale & earth plaster music studio in a forest in Oregon with some friends, and that's where most of my music comes from - silence, trees, animals, water. In the first season of the pandemic I recorded an album there called In My Garden. Then about a year later I got really depressed thinking about our emergent doom in the climate crisis and in finding my way out of that hole, I created a follow-up two-track, Long Winter.

Since then I've been touring and recording with a handful of other projects, including Maya Elise & The Good Dream, Josiah Johnson, Caitlin Jemma, and the Feelings Parade. The next season of my music will take my sound in a more electronic, heavier direction, beginning with my song "sway sway," out on all platforms on Friday, October 28th.

My work is enabled by my parents and ancestors and a host of teachers and guides too long to name. I am also supported by a wonderful community of monthly subscribers at patreon.com/mgilvryallen. For people who wish to support my art and help me continue, this is the way.

-M

Oakland, CA
October 2022

Services

  • Live music for all occasions, including weddings, events, house concerts and club gigs
  • Live-streamed entertainment for Zoom parties, meetings, & virtual events
  • Sound facilitation for ecstatic dance, blues fusion, contact improv, yoga, meditation & sound healing
  • DJing house, sexy downtempo and global bass music
  • Session recording work, commissions & remote production

For inquiries, contact mgilvryallen AT gmail DOT com.

Testimonials

Gordon "M'Gilvry" Allen delivers an exceptional experience, plain and simple. As the featured musical artist at Responsive Conference (Las Vegas, 2019) he staged a variety of interactive music performances over two days, creating natural transitions and authentic moments of connection for our attendees. M'Gilvry is a self-contained creative asset for an organizer. I highly recommend him for anyone wanting to level-up a conference, event, or experience. 

—Robin Zander, CEO, Zander Media & Responsive Org

 

My brother M’Gilvry Allen is a musician whose work transforms the heart. 

His music reminds us of the truths we sometimes (but never fully) forget: that we each have a gift to give, a seed to sow, a story that is ours and must be shared. M'Gilvry creates soundscapes unlike any we've ever heard before, but can always return to, again and again. His voice is a homecoming, a bridge between the ear and the heart, one that shortens the distance between my heart and yours. When M'Gilvry sings, he calls us to prayer, into harmony, and in the silence that thrums afterwards, it is as if everyone in the room breathes as one. 

M'Gilvry composes songs that invite us to better listen to and trust ourselves. He sings from a deep place, and from this place he sings into creation a world where all belong, all are healed, and all are free.

—Rose Crespo, Community Organizer, Event Producer & Multimedia Artist