After almost ten years, the American art-rock band return to perform the fractured, industrial soundscape of David Lynch’s midnight masterpiece, accompanied by footage from the film with support from Loscil (CAN) & amby downs (AUS) at Borderlands, Dark Mofo this June
Eraserhead Xiu Xiu" is a 2025–2026 live audio-visual performance where experimental band Xiu Xiu reinterprets the score of David Lynch's 1977 film. Touring internationally, the show features Jamie Stewart and Angela Seo using field recordings, homemade instruments, and modular synths to create a dark, industrial, and emotional soundscape accompanying the film
Hey, Who do we have today and Where are you writing to us from?
This is jamie from xiu xiu. i am in Den Haag for a couple days for a concert.
Awesome to see you coming across the pond for Dark Mofo this year! What are you looking forward to the most about the festival?
As someone who is not Australian, tasmania is a fantastical setting. the chance to be a part of such a renowned, well curated, well run music festival in such a rarified place is pretty dreamy.
Is this your first time coming to Hobart/Dark Mofo?
We played here in 2017.
Having Room40 aka Lawrence curating Borderlands this year, how was that process and i’m guessing you have worked together in the past?
Lawrence is a dear dear friend, colleague and mentor. any chance to be a part of anything he is working is an honor. also he is teaching my bandmate angela and i to drive on the left side of the road so we can take a short vacation after the concert. what a great person!!!!!!
You’ve described this not as a "live score" but as an "explosive audiovisual installation." How does your approach to Eraserhead differ from the more melodic, structured nature of your previous Twin Peaks project?
The songs in twin peaks are just that, songs. they have western folk arrangements i.e. verses, choruses, chords and melodies. we approached them by playing the songs as written but orchestrating them as if BOB and his black lodge cohorts were the band. The sounds and music in eraserhead, aside from "in heaven" and the two fats waller songs are soundscapes, drones, field recordings and ambient experiments. they are not really possible to cover in any sort of hopefully newly developed way. however the feeling, textures, emotionality and aesthetics of eraserhead are so evocative and so specific that felt that we could try to cover that. forgive this description as it sounds a little pretentious but we are a little pretentious so OH WELL, but we are attempting to play the feelings and non colors that the sound and music from eraserhead explore. our concert is a normal length but we considered it as if eraserhead were 15 hours long. asking what else could happen sonically during that time that would feel connected to and reference the original sounds but be an expansion of them. we thought of the film we play to during the concert in the same way. there is no footage from eraserhead in it but again what else could possibly be in it that might fit into that universe but that wasn't there before? yes we are nerds!!!!!!!
David Lynch’s original sound design is famously industrial and ambient. How much of the original Alan Splet soundscape do you aim to preserve, and where do you feel the need to completely deconstruct it?
Some ideas we quoted directly, synthetic wind, trains, machine sounds, elevators, some we quoted but exploded chickens, bodily functions, babies crying, organs, space sounds and some came from those but were not those, cartoon sounds, pinballs and ball bearings, industrial drum and sub bass sounds, distressed animal sounds, breaking glass and ??????? sounds
