Black Eyes Update Number 5

December 13, 2023

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 announce our March shows in Chicago (with Lifeguard!), offer you our top ten lists, and, for our paid subscribers, that live video from back in April at the church in Philly.

Meantime, our next D.C. and NYC appearances are this weekend. Looks like there are still tix for both shows as of this writing:

Chicago! March 8 and 9

We’re very pleased to share news that we’ll be at the Empty Bottle in Chicago on March 8 and 9. Both shows are with the amazing Lifeguard and we are fully stoked.

Tickets are here:

See ya there?

Top Tens

Deep breath…

Hugh

• New Records: MC Yallah - Yallah Beibe; Creation Rebel - Hostile Environment; African Head Charge - A Trip to Bolgatanga; HITS cassette

• Old Records: Hildegard Von Bingen - Ordo Virtutum (2x LP by Sequentia, 1988), Bessie Jones - So Glad I’m Here (LP, 1975)

• Sandwich: “The Who” @ Donkey Punch, Roma (broccoletto, dried tomatoes, hot chili sauce, griddled on ciabatta)

• Craigslist Purchase: D&R Orion Mixing Console

• Hike: Multnomah Falls

• Book: Homer - Iliad (translated by Emily Wilson)

• Live Set: Black’s Myths April 2023 shows

• Live Set not at a Black Eyes Show: Sister Nancy

• IMAX Film: Stop Making Sense

• Piece of Gear I Never Thought I’d Buy: mic-stand-mounted drum-stick-and-percussion-bag and/or pedal board

Jacob

A best of 2023 list with a bunch of records and 10 more things too

• A few new records that stayed in heavy rotation this year:

  • Mike Reed - The Separatist Party

  • Radian- Distorted Rooms

  • Purelink - Signs

  • Jamie Branch - Fly or die Fly or die Fly or die ((world war))

  • Chris Abrahams/Oren Ambarchi/Robbie Avenaim - Placelessness

  • Asher Gamedze- Turbulence and Pulse

  • Gerald Cleaver/Brendan Lopez/Hprizm - In The Wilderness

  • Rob Mazurek/Exploding Star Orchestra - Lightning Dreams

• playing shows and writing new music and spending time with black eyes bandmates

• April shows being a long weekend of “college reunion” vibes for our extended crew who wouldn’t go to our actual “Reunions”

• Spending a few days playing and recording music with my good friend Sean McGuiness who I have known for 20+ years but somehow this was the first real time we made music together (hopefully more to come next year)

• Marshall Allen and a huge crew of NYC improvisers at Shift in January

• James Brandon Lewis/Chad Taylor and Matana Roberts at union pool on July 4

• water damage/konjur collective/power Rollins duo at P.I.T. in September

• new skatepark in Maspeth with a medium/reasonable sized bowl that is close by…

• Old man skate crew weekend getaway in September

• Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale…consistently my favorite beer every year…

• Experiencing Dripping (daniel and co’s) incredible new summer festival and getting to play a 2 hour solo sax set which was taxing in the best way possible.

Daniel

New Records & Recordings

• Rrose “Please Touch”

• Lisa Lerkendfeldt “Halos of Perception”

• Nexciya “4U&4ME”

• Chuquimamani-Condori “DJ E”

• Sully “UH-03”

• Paul St. Hilaire “Tikiman Vol. 1”

• Clara! “Lluvia De Sal” (feat. El Manantial)

• Azu Tiwaline “The Fifth Dream”

• Nahi Mitti “Nahi Mitti and the City”

• Lilocox “Drums (Lata)”

• Nídia “95 Mindjeres”

Non-2023 Records / Music I Discovered

• Kali Malone “Living Torch”

• Dickie Landry “Having Been Built on Sand”

• Bridge “Inner Disbelief”

• SunkLo “Faint”

• The YCO catalog

• The work of Davis Galvin

Shows

• Kilbourne at Hammerhead 02

• Atrice live at Nowadays in May

• Earthen Sea live sax sets

• Pent b2b Jake Muir at Spindrift in Philadelphia

• Moor Mother “Black Encyclopedia of the Air” at Unsound NY at Lincoln Center

• SPF 50 at Nowadays in November

• Dripping. Can I count this..? Throwing the first edition of Dripping this summer was a major highlight. 18 months in the making and a huge labor of love with my good friend + collaborator Leo Miller. Particular shout out to RP Boo, DJ Marcelle, Rrose, Nídia, Ponicli Creación… honestly everybody was so so good.

Books

Reading took a hit this year. It was a busy one. But I finished a couple cool ones:

• On Minimalism: Documenting a Musical Movement by Kerry O’Brien and William Robin

• The Rest Is Noise by Alex Ross

• Trans Girl Suicide Museum by Hannah Baer

Music Experiences

• The Black Eyes shows were incredible. Working on the zine too was a very rich experience - interpersonally, editorially, graphically.. The whole push towards the April run of shows was a very rewarding creative stretch with some of my oldest friends and people who’ve known me since I was 15.

• Teaching electronic music at the university level for the first time

• Multiple all night sets at Mansions

• Performing my live set at the mighty Headznite

Mike

New

• Algiers “Shook”

• HITS s/t

• Elijah McLaughlin Ensemble, “III”

• Wet Dip, “Smell of Money”

New to Me

• Maleem Mahmoud Ghania & Pharaoh Sanders, “The Trance of the Seven Colors”

• Archie Shepp, “Blase”

• Matt Sweeney and Bonnie “Prince” Billie, “Superwolves”

• Konjure Kollective, “Blood in My Eye (A Soul Insurgent Guide)”

• Julius Eastman

Books

• New Lefts: The Making of a Radical Tradition by Terence Renaud

• Dune by Frank Herbert

• The Singular Universe and the Reality of Time (book one, at least) by Roberto Mangabeira Unger and Lee Smolin

• American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin

Film

• Rustin

• Oppenheimer

Experiences

• Black Eyes. In communion with each other and this larger community.

  • Playing for the first time in 20 years for Chris Richards.

  • Playing for the first time in 20 years for Cindy Fisher.

• Water Damage playing as part of an incredible line-up for Tubby’s fifth anniversary

• Bonnie “Prince” Billy at Tubby’s fifth anniversary.

All time unforgettable image

Mike’s partner Cindy with their child Tobias watching the first of the secret Black Eyes shows in Hugh’s basement, April 6, 2023 (Shawn Brackbill)

Dan

• April weekend: Having my family get to see us perform was amazing. Not something that I ever thought would happen.

• Seeing old friends that I haven't seen in years. Good vibes all around

• Eating Ethiopian food on a semi regular basis

• Aeropress: Damn fine coffee

• Live

  • Springsteen

  • Dylan

  • Unwound

  • Blacks' Myths

  • Pissed Jeans

• Books

  • Saxophone Colossus by Aidan Levy

  • Sonic Life by Thurston Moore

  • High Bias by Marc Masters

  • Legacy of Ashes by Tim Weiner

• Listening

  • Sonny Rollins, “East Broadway Rundown”

  • Bruce Springsteen, “The River”

  • Miles Davis, “Jack Johnson”

  • Bob Dylan, “Complete Budokan”

• Podcasts

  • The Best Show

  • U Springin Springsteen on my Bean

With love, 

Dan, Daniel, Hugh, Jacob, Mike

Black Eyes, live at the Church in Philly, April 9, 2023

This month’s bonus content comes to you courtesy of Shawn Brackbill and his Unacceptable Color project. Shawn accompanied us for our April performances in D.C., New York, and Philadelphia. There, he took HI8 video recordings which he and his partners have synced up with audio recordings from the shows.

His work from Philadelphia is below…