Tyler Burba performing at St. Mark's Church on the Bowery, New Years' Day Poetry Marathon, 2012.
Tyler Burba got his start in music by singing at gospel competitions and performing on local Christian radio programs in the Pacific Northwest. During these early years, he also taught himself how to play piano and guitar after becoming interested in rock n roll artists like Elvis Presley, the Beatles, and Bob Dylan. He has since written, recorded, and performed in a number of genres, including; classical, jazz, blues, rock n roll, Latin, country, experimental/avant-garde and spoken word. With his solo project, Visit, he has released two albums of existential music, with a third on the way in 2022, and an album of songs with lyrics by Thomas Pynchon.
Growing up in Vancouver, Washington, Burba took an early interest in music and literature. He met the poet Allen Ginsberg at age fifteen who encouraged him to continue his study of poetry. Burba would later go to Naropa Institute (co-founded by Ginsberg) to study poetry and music, working closely with Beat poets Anne Waldman, Akilah Oliver, and Reed Bye on spoken word and music albums.. Being at Buddhist University, he began a life-long study of the Dharma and the practice of meditation, rooted in Tibetan Buddhism. Burba is currently a student of the Dzogchen tradition with additional training in the Shambhala lineage, focusing especially on sense perception as a vehicle for mindfulness and existential questions. He uses listening as a vehicle for greater awareness and grounding in the present and as a means towards ecstasy, pulling awareness out of the default mode toward a state of becoming.
Burba continued his studies at European Graduate School, where he is completing his doctoral work on visual ecstasy and synesthesia. He received a Master’s degree at EGS after completing a Master’s thesis on ecstatic listening which was later published by Atropos Press as “On Becoming Music: Between Boredom and Ecstasy” (with a piece by Peter Price). He received a second master’s degree in Ethnomusicology from Hunter College in 2018.
Since 2005, he has worked as a teacher for New York Public schools and has recently moved from teaching English to Music.
His fourth release under Visit, entitled “Existential Hymns” is due out in fall 2022. “Exit Ayres,” a fifth album by Visit is in the works as well as another album of Thomas Pynchon lyrics with a focus on big band arrangements of lyrics from Gravity’s Rainbow in collaboration with author and producer Christian Hӓnggi.
Press:
“Top Ten Tuesday” Review by B-Side Guys of “Laughing At The Past”
“Existential Hymns Put Into Music The Laughs, Wonder, Struggle And Strangeness Of Life”
“ALBUM PREVIEW: Country-Tinged Band Visit Gets Spiritual On Upcoming Record ‘Existential Hymns’”
By Maddie Fry and Paul Howard for Music Mecca
Review of “Laughing At The Past” on American Pancake by Robb Donker Curtius
Review of “Laughing At The Past” on Zone Nights
Interview on KFSM, December 18th, 2022:
“This is perhaps the most subversive album this reviewer has come across for some time. Visit is essentially a vehicle for Tyler Burba, a veritable renaissance man who studied under Alan Ginsberg, who paints and writes poetry and teaches disadvantaged kids. In addition, as evidenced here, he has some terrific country chops and this album is chock full of excellent songs that sound as if they could be by Johnny Cash in his gospel period with pedal steel and banjos galore.”
Rambles.net review of "Think God"
“Thomas Pynchon can be read. Dancing with Pynchon - that's possible now”
Why I Cried interviewed Tyler Burba about the album, the death of the hippie, and reading Thomas Pynchon (or not). Read it here. (27 May 2021)
“Now everybody—” was featured on the radio too. Bavarian Radio (Bayerischer Rundfunk) went so far as to call “It Was Fun While It Lasted” one of the best songs of the pandemic-ridden year 2020! (26 Dec 2020)
On October 7th, 2020, on Swiss Radio SRF 2 Kultur. Download the podcast (starting around 18min45s).
On October 11th, 2020, on Bavarian Radio BR2, Kulturjournal. Download the podcast (starting around 22min30s)
Fourteen sweeping and competently arranged songs.
(Vierzehn kompetent arrangierte und mitreissend gespielte Songs.)— Angela Schader, Neue Zürcher Zeitung (read)
Whether wacky funk, nostalgic rock’n’roll, psychedelic hippie rock or pathos-drenched country sound — the musical styles and arrangements are as diverse as Thomas Pynchon’s eight novels.
(Ob schräger Folk, nostalgischer Rock’n’Roll, psychedelischer Hippie-Rock oder pathosgetränkter Country-Sound – so verschieden wie Thomas Pynchons acht Romane sind hier Musikstile und Arrangements.)— Bernhard Jugel, Bayerischer Rundfunk (listen)
Now Everybody— is an entertaining but also profound alternative journey through Pynchon’s work which brings both literary and musical pleasure.
(Die CD «Now Everybody» ist eine unterhaltsame, aber auch tiefgründige alternative Reise durch Pynchons Werk, die sowohl literarisches wie musikalisches Vergnügen bereitet.)— Eric Facon, Schweizer Radio SRF 2 Kultur (listen)
This album lends the musical dimension of Pynchon’s works additional attention; it is like a trip out of the oeuvre in order to immerse oneself again with the proper rhythms.
(Diese Platte gibt der musikalischen Dimension in Pynchons Werken eine zusätzliche Aufmerksamkeit, ist wie Ausflug aus dem Werk hinaus, um mit passenden Rhythmen darin wieder einzutauchen.)— Thomas Hummitzsch, Intellectures (read)
This is a classic sounding Americana record, but one executed with great finesse, befitting of the material that inspired it.
— Eduard Banulescu, Alt77 music blog (review of “Middletown New York”)
This album is so good as a whole that one doesn’t need to be a Pynchon devotee to have a ball.
(Dieses Ganze ist so gut, dass man nicht zu den Pynchon-Verehrern gehören muss, um seinen Spass daran zu haben.)— Oliver Camenzind, Loop Musikzeitung