Xiu Xiu Releases 'Eraserhead Xiu Xiu,' a New Musical Exploration of David Lynch
- The Night Temple
- Jul 15
- 2 min read
Xiu Xiu has just released 'ERASERHEAD XIU XIU,' an immersive exploration of the sonic and visual world of Eraserhead, David Lynch’s groundbreaking 1977 cinematic masterpiece. Ahead of the album’s release, Xiu Xiu shared “In Heaven,” their interpretation of the beloved Eraserhead song originally composed by Peter Ivers with lyrics by David Lynch. Released in May alongside the album announcement, the single was accompanied by a striking video collage that captured the dreamlike, unsettling beauty of Lynch’s vision. The album is now available on Polyvinyl.
In 2016, with the blessing of David Lynch and Angelo Badalamenti, the band released 'Plays the Music of Twin Peaks,' a critically acclaimed album and subsequent live tour that they retired in 2018 out of respect for the beloved series. Following Lynch's passing, the band received numerous high-profile requests to revive the project. Instead, determined to honor his legacy by embracing the same spirit of artistic risk and innovation that defined his work, Xiu Xiu chose to venture somewhere entirely new.
'ERASERHEAD XIU XIU' is a new live performance, accompanying film, and full-length album inspired by the sonic and visual universe of Eraserhead. Built from field recordings, custom-made instruments, organ, modular synthesizers, vocals, flashlights, electrical interference, and elements of musique concrète, the project channels the film's unsettling emotional landscape, its fractured intimacy, conflicted sexuality, relentless darkness, and otherworldly atmosphere.
“In Heaven” Single w/ Video
The album is a remarkable work of sound collage and experimentation. Pieces such as "Tetra" and "Sleep Synth" drift between near-silence and overwhelming walls of noise, while the closing rendition of "In Heaven" transforms Peter Ivers' original composition into something hauntingly delicate, with Jamie Stewart's understated vocal performance revealing the strange beauty and melancholy at the heart of Lynch's 1977 masterpiece.
Guided by the original film's groundbreaking sound design and score (by Alan Splet and David Lynch), Xiu Xiu expand rather than recreate Eraserhead, filtering its influence through their own uncompromising artistic vision. The result is both tribute and transformation, imagining an alternate cinematic landscape through the band's own surreal audiovisual language.
Part art installation, part live concert, part experimental film, and part elegy to one of cinema's greatest visionaries, 'ERASERHEAD XIU XIU' stands as an entirely new work- intense, strange, uncompromising, and enveloped in darkness. It could hardly be anything else. After all, this is Eraserhead.
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