Black Eyes Update 14: Ticket links for Philly and New York; our top tens
Hello friends,
Welcome back to Speaking in Tongues, a monthly newsletter / interview series from Black Eyes that extends the thread we started with our zine of the same name. If you haven’t checked it out, you can find it here.
In this edition, we offer you links to tickets for our March, 2025, Philly and New York run (Kingston is sold out), as well as our 2024 top tens and a playlist thereof.
East Coast Shows, March 2025
About a month ago, we announced our next live performances via our Instagram channel. We’ll be Philadelphia at the First Unitarian Church on March 28, in Red Hook, Brooklyn at Pioneer Works on March 29, and in Kingston, New York, at Tubby’s on March 30. Though the Tubby’s show is sold out (thank y’all Hudson Valley people), you can still get tickets for the Philadelphia and New York shows. Buttons are below.
2024 Top Tens
We’ve seen some bullshit in 2024. Here, we hope, is a counter to all that.
Dan
PJ Harvey-live at Terminal 5
Finally got to see her after being a fan for years. Didn’t disappoint. Played her new album as one piece, which made me appreciate it much more than when I first heard it.
Jesus Lizard-live at Brooklyn Steel
They still slay and David Yow is still throwing himself into the audience during practically every song.
Gastr del Sol-We Have Dozens of Titles
Really great to hear this music in a live context. Never got to see them.
Can-live in Paris 1973
Another great live release during arguably their peak.
Zombi-Direct Inject
A new Zombi album? Will I like it? Of course I will.
Eldritch Annisette-7”(digital release from Numero Group)
Stoked to revisit this. Major nostalgia for me, and the songs hold up.
Fennesz- Venice 20
20 year reissue/remaster. This album still sounds incredible. Love the way “Transit” interrupts the two purely instrumental halves.
Bonnie Prince Billy/Nathan Salsburg/Tyler Trotter-Hear the Children Sing/The Evidence
Had to second this (following Mike’s lead). Beautiful/ hypnotic versions of these songs.
They should do more.
Podcasts:
A History of Rock Music in 500 songs
Continue to be amazed by this man’s work. The level of detail in each episode is astounding.
The Best Show
Still one of my favorite parts of every week
Daniel
Some music I saw or that came out in 2024 that stayed with me:
Drew McDowell - A Thread, Silvered and Trembling
A truly psychedelic synth odyssey from the ex-Coil member.
Ghost Dubs - Damaged
Ruthless dub techno with a ton of noise and grit. Honestly feels like this was made in a lab just for me.
Elori Saxl - Drifts and Surfaces / live at Public Records 8.16.24
I was in the top 0.2% of Elori Saxl listeners in 2023. Hopefully more people tuned in this year. At the record release show for “Drifts and Surfaces” at Public Records, she led a few different ensembles with total mastery.
Elizabethan Collar - /\ 10
Sure this came out in 2015 but I had the pleasure of discovering the Aught catalog this year. What a label, and my favorite release is this haunting and captivating cassette by Elizabethan Collar, which may be an alternate alias of Eliza BC, about whom I know nothing. Details are scarce, but this is truly perfect music.
Bendik Giske - live at Dripping 2024
Ok, I co-organized this festival, but Giske played a set of such ferocious power and technical mastery, it was easily one of the craziest performances of the year, and one of the most memorable of my life.
Eden Aurelius - Plateau
Exquisite deep techno.
Der Shuurman - Bubbling Forever
Exquisite afro-diasporic club music. Each track is better than the last.
SUNN O)) - live at Unsound NY
Front row seats for Sunn O)) at Lincoln Center was a fucking ride. 14 heads, 18 cabinets, truly the loudest sound I’ve ever heard. And incredibly rich and perfectly defined. They earn the dB.
Afrikan Sciences - .5x100Rf(est.1974)
An overlooked masterpiece of modern electronic jazz-electronic-21st century composition fusion.
FujiIIIIIIIIIIIta - live at Knockdown Center
Wild free improv with an organ pipe, an airbrush and a loop pedal. The sensitivity and creativity-within-limitations was out of the world.
Hugh
Records:
Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Nathan Salsburg, and Tyler Trotter - Hear the Children Sing The Evidence
Works exactly as described.
The Intima - Peril and Panic LP reissue
The Intima played a show with Q and not U at Joe’s Movement Emporium back in 2001 (I think). Most if not all of us went over there after band practice and it stuck with us. Beautifully remixed by Jason Powers who, completing some kind of circle, was the (exceptionally awesome) sound person for a 2003 Q and not U, Black Eyes, and Antelope show at Nocturnal in Portland.
MC Yallah - Yallah Beibe (came out in 2023 but I never saw a physical copy of it until I bought it in December 2024)
Multilingual Kenyan/Ugandan MC looses mind-bending flows in at least four languages over equally mind-bending tracks. Hard to beat.
Prince Far I - Cry Tuff Chants On U
The Voice of Thunder chants over some of the best On-U Sound rhythms. For an aging dub-addled punk like myself, On-U Sound’s more systematic revisiting of its history and back catalog (not to mention new African Head Charge and Creation Rebel LPs!) has been a real treat. This is a particularly precious collection.
Shows:
Irreversible Entanglements at Casa Del Jazz, Rome
Our December 2023 show with Irreversible Entanglements and Clear Channel was a highlight of last year. I was incredibly amped that they were playing just outside the Aurelian walls while I was teaching in Rome this summer. The liberatory power of collectivist, community-oriented, creative music thundering against the fortifications of Empire was palpable in the crazy heat.
Ekko Astral at Black Cat, DC
Saw them twice. Liked them as a five-piece at their record release show in April (with Bacchae). Loved them as a three-piece at the Bad Moves record release show (with Perennial) in September.
Kicking Giant at 9:30 Club, DC
I loved Kicking Giant as a teenager. I bought Alien I.D. from my friend’s distro at a punk show at the VFW hall near Eastern Market in 1994 and it is pretty banged up now. There was not the slightest whiff of stale “reunion” energy on them that night and I lost my voice screaming along up front.
Record Stores:
Estuario Records, Highland Park
Stumbled in here with my friend Sean between our shows at Lodge Room in January. I don’t totally know how to describe this tiny record store except to say that it could have been made for me personally. The sections were not labeled but, there was a coherent sense of organization to the stock. There were LPs of bands I had searched for in vain in the 90s. There was weird music I’d never heard of. In the end, constrained by luggage space I left with an archival LP of Greek traditional music and a CD of Coil’s Love’s Secret Domain demos. Can’t wait to go back.
Music Research Library, Boston
A little bigger than Estuario, but not much. Reasonably priced, small but killer selection, which is also labeled by genre. I’m always happy when I find good Haitian records hadn’t been aware of before and the copy of Annette Auguste’s Gadé Oun Zetoile I scored here is a delight.
Book:
Huggy Bear - Killed (of Kids)
If I start in on this I will write a book of my own. Huggy Bear was probably the most important to me of the bands I got to see as a teenager. Their music, their sleeve notes, their aesthetic, their politics got grafted into my creative DNA at a young age. They seemed like ambassadors of a (real? imagined? impending?) girl/boy, feminist, queer punk utopia. But their situationist-ical approach and antipathy to the media made them pretty mysterious to me. This collectively-written recollection and collection of long-hard-to-find zines puts all the boredom, rage, and fierce intention into some helpful context, but doesn’t dull the shine at all.
Jacob
8 new records and 2 reissues:
Darius Jones - Legend of e’Boi (The Hypervigilant Eye)
Melodic but scorching trio led by one of my favorite living sax players.
Lifted - Trelis
Possibly biased since I contributed to 2 of the tracks on this LP but regardless this is electronic music that still sounds futuristic but human at the same time. An incredible blending of the tactile instruments and alien electronic textures.
Luke Stewart’s Silt Trio - Unknown Rivers
Luke is involved with so many musical projects (honestly have no idea how he finds the time) but this one hit home (am a sucker for sax/bass/drum trios). Brian Settles sax playing is great and the rhythm section is burning throughout.
Water Damage - In E
Was lucky enough to see and play with this crew a few times this year and this record has been in heavy rotation as well. Heavy droning repetition. Perfection.
Oren Ambarchi, Johan Berthling & Andreas Werliin - Ghosted II
Round 2 of this group’s singular hypnotic/rhythmic sound. Fluid rhythms accompanied by Oren’s ability to make a guitar’s sound constantly shift but never actually sound like a guitar. Mesmerizing.
Tomin - A Willed and Conscious Balance
Moody, impressionistic, tone poems. Could be called jazz but really just enchanting beautiful music.
Beings - There is a Garden
Featuring another of my current favorite sax players (Zoh Amba). Fire breathing tenor playing and tender singing. Along with Jim White’s ever inventive drumming. Creative free/rock/improv/out there stuff.
Ibelisse Guardia Ferragutti&Frank Rosaly - MESTIZX
Not sure how to describe this but one of the reviews on Bandcamp says “esoteric avant latin-jazz” and that is part of what is going on. But along with that there are modern sounding electronics and beautiful vocals/songs, creative percussion and group interplay. They also did a few songs as an acoustic duo on Giles Peterson’s radio show (video can be found somewhere) that is enchanting in a whole other way.
Universal Order of Armageddon - s/t (discography) (Numero Group)
Long overdue remastered collection of tracks from (imo) one of the essential American bands of the 90s. Pummeling punk, poetic chaos. Glad I spent time with this if only because I now realize that ‘Longer, Stranger’ which I didn’t care for so much as a younger person actually sounds like the link between Moss Icon and UOA. What a band…
Microstoria - init ding/+snd
While the cover for this reissue is kind of ridiculously bad (init ding has one of my favorite covers originally) this collection of Microstoria’s first 2 LPs is as good a starting point as any to hear what forward thinking abstract electronic music was in the mid/late 90s.
Mike
Bleed - The Necks: Minimal, haunting stuff from this trio of veteran Australian improvisors. Solidly beautiful.
The Tumbling Psychic Joy of Now - Holy Ghost and Shackleton: In my own personal listening world, this is the grooving answer to the Neck’s Bleed. A warm embrace of dubby goodness.
Hear the Children Sing the Evidence - Bonnie “Prince” Billy/Nathan Salsburg/Tyler Trotter: Two favorite Lungfish songs reimagined and not. That the project began as a lullabye is unsurprising and perfect. Oldham’s voice on these tracks is so dang good.
Wood Blues - [Ahmed]: Driving, intense stuff that finds and stays in a familiar (but wonderful) lane.
Cry Tuff Chants on U - Prince Far I. Long dead, still amazing — and still singular.
Letter to Self - The Sprints. I learned about these folks from some pals shortly after our shows in Los Angeles. Very glad I did. Heavy and intense; Nirvana-y without ripping off the ghost.
Machines - The Bug. Speaking of the 1990s (shit: 1980s?)…I couldn’t stop hearing Pretty Hate Machine while listening to this record. But with an even heavier lean into smooshed and smashed industrial. So, like, in a really good way?
Tongue Depressor - Live, Dadageek in Austin, Texas. Saw this double bass and bagpipes duo play in the middle of a seated audience. It was almost a ritual. Or maybe it was and I missed that part? Either way, phenomenal stuff.
A Playlist for you
We’ve turned our top tens into a Playlist. Enjoy:
That’s all for now.
With love,
Dan, Daniel, Hugh, Jacob, and Mike