Psychic-Ills-Gibby-Haynes-Nowhere-in-the-Night-Web-001-Credit-Jeff-Burch
photo: Jeff Burch

Psychic Ills & Gibby Haynes releasing lost album (stream 3 tracks)

Brooklyn’s Psychic Ills toured with Butthole Surfers in 2009, and at the end of their trek they holed up in Williamsburg’s Monster Island to record an all-night improvisational jam between Psychic Ills’ Tres Warren (guitar, loops, percussion, harmonica), Elizabeth Hart (bass) and Brian Tamborello (drums), and Butthole Surfers frontman Gibby Haynes (vocals, modular synth). The idea was to use if for the fourth volume of FRKWYS, an ongoing series of intergenerational collaborations that began in 2009.

The recordings sat unfinished for over a decade, though, but are finally seeing the light of day as, in part, a tribute to Psychic Ills’ Tres Warren, who died in 2020. Pared down to album length, FRKWYS Vol. 4​.​5: Nowhere in the Night will be out July 29 via RVNG Intl. (It’s a supplemental to FRKWYS Vol 4 which also featured Psychic Ills.) “Revisiting this music after so many years brought me back to that frenzied all-night affair,” Hart says. “We wanted to see what would happen if we mixed Gibby’s raw power with our nomadic improvisations of that era. This album captures a moment in time, a window into that mad night of experimentation.”

While born of improvisation, these tracks are not formless, and you can listen to three wigged-out tracks from it now:

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FRKWYS Vol. 4​.​5: Nowhere in the Night:
1. No Way
2. At Long Last
3. Clone
4. Schizo Fez
5. Shakin
6. Lude
7. Something Like That
8. Where’s The Beginning