Xiu Xiu are returning to the world of David Lynch, but not in the way anyone expected. A decade after Plays the Music of Twin Peaks introduced the band’s abrasive and emotionally volatile take on Lynch and Angelo Badalamenti’s music, they’ve announced ERASERHEAD XIU XIU, a new album, film and live performance project based on Eraserhead. It arrives July 10 through Polyvinyl.
The first preview is a version of ‘In Heaven’, the song originally written by Peter Ivers with lyrics by Lynch. In Xiu Xiu’s hands, it becomes distant and uneasy, vocals floating through layers of organ, static and fractured electronics. The accompanying video collage mirrors that same feeling, assembling fragments rather than narrative.
Following Lynch’s death, the band were approached about reviving Plays the Music of Twin Peaks, the touring production they retired in 2018. Instead, they moved toward Eraserhead, building a new work around the film’s sound design, visual language and emotional tension. The project uses homemade instruments, modular synths, field recordings, flashlights and musique concrète techniques to pull apart the atmosphere of the original film and rebuild it into something harsher and more abstract.
According to the band, tracks like ‘Tetra’ and ‘Sleep Synth’ move between sparse ambient passages and overwhelming noise, while ‘In Heaven’ closes the album in comparatively restrained fashion. The original sound design by Lynch and Alan Splet remains central to the project, acting less as source material and more as a framework for Xiu Xiu’s own interpretation.
For a band that has spent more than two decades operating on the fringes of experimental rock, ERASERHEAD XIU XIU feels completely in step with their catalogue. There is no attempt to smooth out the ugliness or confusion that made Eraserhead so unsettling in the first place. If anything, Xiu Xiu seem intent on sitting inside it for as long as possible.
Xiu Xiu Tour Dates
21/06 – Hobart, Tasmania @ Dark Mofo * [SOLD OUT]
02/10 – Los Angeles, CA @ 2220 Arts + Archives *
03/10 – Los Angeles, CA @ 2220 Arts + Archives *
01/10 – 11/10 – Vancouver, BC @ Vancouver International Film Festival
08/10 – San Francisco, CA @ Gray Area *
* Eraserhead performance
