Year Round-Up feat. nyxy nyx

and some other songs you might like

Dec 27, 2024

Nyxy Nyx, aka Brian Reichert; press photo.

I wanted to interview nyxy nyx’s Brian Reichert for this year-end wrap-up because, as you’ll see below, there was absolutely no real competition to them for my favorite music of the year. They were my favorite music of the year, edging out any contemporaries or old favorites, even. I took breaks; I labored tirelessly at a couple recording studios; I worked on albums for friends, the melodies of which floated through my mind for days on end. I tried to branch out: I bought more music Jim O’Rourke recommended; I snapped up Nick Drake’s complete discography on CD, mint, for $6 at Academy, asking the clerk at the counter, “What’s the catch?” (he didn’t know or care, and there was none); I discovered I like classic rock even more than I thought, stocking up on Led Zeppelin CD’s (Barry Diament masters only!) at the recommendation of Chris Ott’s latest, somewhat baffling, salvo of YouTube videos. But time and again, I returned to the nyxy cult, and was all too glad to do so. For my money, they’re making the best music in America right now. So I thought I’d try asking its author a few prodding questions about it.

But Reichert was too busy, or too forgetful, or too flaky, or maybe he wasn’t into the idea to begin with. And really, that’s okay. As the time would approach for us to speak on the phone, I’d start getting cold feet, myself. nyxy nyx operates on mystery, shadow and gallows - no, graveyard - humor. The imagery on their album covers is haunting, often funereal, and their songs are the product of an aching, alienated heart trying to find peace and some kind of communion. Their albums float in and out of existence online. They play short tours and break up immediately thereafter, vowing never to play live again. Names are listed on albums with typically sparse credits, although the work is clearly that of Reichert’s, primarily. Injecting the banal reality of interviewing - a lost art these days, anyway - felt a bit besides the point. Maybe one day it won’t for either of us.

Regardless, it’s been quite a year for nyxy nyx. In February, they released ☆, which I fell hard for, and still feel is the best summation of what the band does minus the crunching hard riffs they deliver live - which thankfully, they delivered on their single “EMPTY GESTURE,” out in September with an infinitesimally small lathe cut single run of 13 records. A split single with Midwife, “It’s OK 2 Lie 2 Me/Andy” raised their profile with the band backing Midwife, née Madeline Johnson, on the excellent, haunting A-side and Johnson joining Reichert in unison for the utterly beguiling flipside. Come the late summer and early autumn, they began to slowly release, song by song, the more relaxed real life, venturing further into the Guided by Voices/neo-UK invasion sound hinted at in the earlier work. real life ventured into - dare I say - more romantic and even optimistic? territory than its predecessors, featuring unabashed love tunes such as “chain link heart” and the John Hughes territory of “white candles,” and the somewhat baffling, even unsettling buoyancy of “i love my life.” As the year concludes, Reichert & co. are slowly trickling out cult classics vol. 1, featuring the aforementioned “Gesture” and other full band performances with bassist Benjamin Schurr (also of Ruah and Luna Honey) and drummer Alex Ha.

And if that wasn’t enough, nyxy nyx was invoked under the current definition of the adjective “distorted” by the online Miriam-Webster dictionary.

As I have written, I stumbled into the cult thanks to Ha, who thoughtfully put together a bill in Philadelphia with both our bands. I was instantly smitten. In October, fan and photographer Ian Maley released a photo journal of the band’s live shows these past couple years, days like sleep (available here). I was struck by both Maley’s introduction - his accidental discovery of Reichert’s brilliance and darkness mirroring my own - and the inclusion of a picture of me delivering Necco Wafers to the audience (my band’s traditional opening ritual) at Laundrette Records the same night I saw nyxy first. I can’t remember the photograph being taken; fittingly, I’d walked into their story without knowing it.

My soundtrack to 2024 - a year so full of labor, drama, love, absurdity and change for me and so many others - will always be nyxy nyx. The moments are innumerable by now: YouTube throwing on Dream junkie’s “i’m letting go” randomly as I pulled off the freeway in Queens, me starting as the keyboard loop entered the mix on the fade out; playing “EMPTY GESTURE” over and over and over again as I tooled around Westchester and South Brooklyn on an electric late summer night; flipping the Midwife split single back and forth as I made breakfast one morning in June, not knowing when to stop; the alien strains of ☆ serving as the soundtrack to my new home in Washington Heights, a neighborhood so far removed from my previous hidey-hole in Western Queens that it might as well have been another planet. And how about the time I threw on the latter album to listen to on my couch next to Harvey Milk bassist Stephen Tanner, both of us somewhere between here and down-and-outsville, him drawling, “This is some goooood music”? Yes, I spread the gospel. And for the first time since my obsession with The Fall in my early 20s, I’ve had friends - some of whom I hadn’t heard from in a while - reaching out just to thank me for turning them onto nyxy. It really is that good.

Of course, there were plenty of other moments of pure joy, mostly privately expressed - watching the sunset to the ethereal march of Magnolia Electric Co.’s “This House” or hey, what about that time me and my coworker were sitting outside the control room at Sear as June McDoom and Cecile McLorin Savant traded vocal lines on Immanuel Wilkins’ “AFTERLIFE RESIDENCE TIME,” only for said coworker to turn to me, slowly opening his eyes to say what we were both thinking: “That was one of the best things I’ve ever heard”? There are several more such stories, many crossing personal and professional boundaries too sensitive to be transgressed at this time. This work - the constant forge towards finding some kind of truth and transcendence in what still, for my “money” is the superior artistic medium - is unceasing. It’s reflected in these entries, and increasingly informs more of how I move through my waking hours.

And it’s also reflected in my struggle to maintain a passion and love for music while simultaneously benefitting monetarily from its making (somewhat). One of my managers at the studios dropped out of engineering because he wanted to still enjoy music. It’s an unfortunate tradeoff that found me coming home to watch Sopranos re-runs rather than throwing on jazz records to unwind nearly weeks after I started at Sear Sound. But I still love music - in a way, maybe more than ever. The joy I find in the moments still capable of lifting me up, the moments of discovery that set the dopamine loose in the bloodstream, not to mention the small triumphs at the workplace every day, are now that much sweeter. I hope those that delve into the ridiculous number of links below - geez, I shoulda just made a Spotify playlist, but fuck them - will find some semblance of the same lifeblood I’ve derived from the contents therein. Take care, here’s to a successful 2025 and remember:

“Stay humble, it only gets harder.” - Nick Tosches

nyxy nyx:
”EMPTY GESTURE”
”IN HAZE”
”i never wanna lose u”
”we walked days and nights (somewhat unaware)”
”heartsleeve”
”disappoint u”
”shovel home”
”’am i making myself unclear?’”
”sslow”
”Andy”
”white candles”
”i love my life”
”chain link heart”
”memory vs. dream”
”i’m letting go”
”behind a green sheet of glass”
”no worries.”