El Ten Eleven

Gasa Gasa, 4920 Freret St, 70115 New Orleans Kort

sun. 13.09.2026 20:00

Miðar / Skráning

El Ten Elevens Nowhere Faster, the duos 16th release, was forged within that unease. Across eight tracks, it considers not just nothingness but velocitythe strange urgency that propels us forward even when the destination remains unclear. We are committed to acceleration, convinced speed itself might save us. The 33-minute album slows just long enough to pose the harder questions: what are we running from, and what do we think we can outrun?That tension appears even in the albums artwork, once again created with longtime collaborator Rob Fleming. It depicts a classic liminal space: familiar, anonymous, quietly unsettling. A stained glass-colored building and a streetlamp blur at the edges, suggesting motion that feels less like escape than enclosurethe kind that traps rather than transports.Nowhere Faster emerged from Kristian Dunn and Tim Fogartys longest break from touring and recording in their 23 years together, though break is something of a misnomer. Dunns famously restless creative pace never slowed. Instead, he began writing for not one but two drummers, handing Fogarty one of the most demanding challenges of his career. The record also marks a first for the band, weaving real strings and piano throughout, deepening the palette of what is already one of their most layered works.The albums titles and sounds draw from moments scattered across the bands 23-year history. Opener Uncanny Valley Girl marks the return of long-retired effects like the delay pedal, stacking basslines into a dense, enveloping wall. Its a clear-eyed take on AI-era paranoia, anchored by Fogartys steady rhythmsnare taut, cymbals gently alivegiving the sci-fi unease something solid to lean on. Bjorks Alarm Clock, meanwhile, takes its title from an insult hurled at the band by a guitarist of a punk band on their first tour; you can almost hear Dunn and Fogartys quiet laughter beneath the buoyant bass and bow-scratched strings.Still, Nowhere Faster is not a retreat into nostalgia. El Ten Eleven remains invested in risk and reinvention. The record continues to center Fogartys propulsive drumming and Dunns bass-driven experimentation: the first four tracks (side A) feature electric bass, while the latter half (side B) shifts to acoustic bass processed through pedals, subtly altering the albums emotional weight. Last Night In The Kitchen reaches for the slick, sleazy bombast of classic Bond themes, opening new corridors for Dunns ever-expanding musical ambitions.Ultimately, Nowhere Faster is an album about reckoningabout time, endurance, and the uncertainty of how long a band, or a life, can last. We are all fumbling toward finitude. The question is not whether well arrive, but what we want to hear on the way there. What will we dance to as the ground begins to shift beneath us? If nothing else, it may sound something like Nowhere Faster.

Flytjendur

El Ten Eleven
Experiencing an unexpected tragedy or loss often provokes a period of self-reflection, a time to contemplate one’s own place and purpose in the world. That was true for El Ten Eleven’s Kristian Dunn. When a beloved family member passed, Dunn found his own reflections on life emerging in the music he composed. Those expressions led to the creation of Tautology — a sonic meditation on the arc of human life, composed in three parts.

Over the course of three discs, Tautology is, in Dunn’s words, “a representation of life from the teenage years, through middle-age, until the end of life.” The sounds on the album echo Dunn’s own experiences, veering from aggressive metallic riffs to blissful ambient soundscapes. And while there are shared melodies and harmonies through all three records, each one has its own distinct qualities: Tautology I, which represents adolescence, is angsty, aggressive and occasionally depressive; Tautology II is head-noddy and mid-tempo, and represents middle age; while Tautology III, quiet and ambient, represents one’s golden years.

The music on the first disc, Tautology I, has a heavier sound that might surprise longtime El Ten Eleven fans. “I wanted to represent what my teenage years were like, when I was full of testosterone and depression,” says Dunn. “When you're a teenager everything feels so grandiose and dramatic.” The album’s second movement, Tautology II, reflects Dunn’s current state. “I'm middle-aged now, and this is the happiest I've ever been. I think that comes across in the music. This record is the one that sounds the most like the El Ten Eleven people are used to.” For the final chapter, Tautology III, Dunn composed a transcendent set of ethereal music inspired partly by the loss of a dear family member. “I don't know what it's like to be elderly. But my grandmother-in-law Frances McMaster was a very inspiring person. She died recently, and I was thinking about her a lot. She was really smart. She lived into her early nineties and she wrote her fourth book when she was eighty-eight. I'd like to be like her if I make it to that age.”

Tautology is not a typical rock album, and El Ten Eleven are not a typical rock band. For seventeen years the instrumental duo of Dunn (bass/guitar) and Tim Fogarty (drums) have flourished outside the accepted norms of rock orthodoxy, releasing eight full length albums and four EPs, and performing over 750 live shows. Utilizing inventive arrangements and a masterful use of looping, El Ten Eleven create a sound much bigger than the sum of its parts. Most first-timers to an El Ten Eleven show are stunned that the band is a duo. It’s a refreshing sight and a palette whose boundaries the band have explored for unexpected additions to their sound. Tautology finds Dunn and Fogarty pushing this sound into new territory, experimenting with a range of textures not heard on previous El Ten Eleven releases.

Joyful Noise Recordings will digitally release each of Tautology’s three discs, individually and in sequential order, beginning May 1st, with a physical 3xLP release on September 18, 2020. Dunn explains there’s no right or wrong way to listen to Tautology, suggesting that a deep dive into the full project will yield rewards. “I think someone could listen to any one of the discs by themselves and have a really great experience—even if they didn't know about the others. But if they do want to go deeper, I think there will be a lot of interesting stuff to discover. It works symbolically and it all connects. I think this is the best record we've ever done.”