Track Premiere: "El Evil" Shows that a 13 Year Layoff Hasn't Made Sleepytime Gorilla Museum Any Less Weird

Since 1999 Oakland’s Rock Against Rock provocateurs Sleepytime Gorilla Museum have been rewriting the heavy side of avant-garde with just about every twist in the vine. Their perpetual use of the kitchen sink has rightly or wrongly earned them comparisons to Mr. Bungle, Estradasphere and Secret Chiefs 3 and after 13 years of inactivity the band has returned weirder, heavier and more off the chain with studio album number four, of the Last Human Being. The band’s new album is officially released tomorrow and they’ve already been on the road for a couple weeks, including two shows last week at the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, CO — yes, the same hotel of The Shining fame — and as such a couple of singles and videos have already been making the promotional rounds. Today, we present the latest single from the album, “El Evil.” While we’re not sure if the full title of the song is or isn’t “El Evil – for Tony Gallegos (1966-2021), a.k.a. Bunny Man, a.k.a. El Evil,” either way it’s a rhythmically coruscating beast that combines vocal chants, wavelength baroqueness, Sunday morning church bell round-ups and left-field scattershotting.

Says head Gorilla, Nils Frykdahl about the track in typical SGM inveterate perplexity: “The refrain of ‘El Evil’ is borrowed from the Idiot Flesh song ‘Let the Dog Sing’ (recorded in 1998 but soon to be released). At a show in Fresno, Tony had joined us in his Bunny Man costume. A drunken bar patron kept yelling ‘Hey, let the dog sing!’ Only near the end of the show did we realize he thought Tony was a dog. Gracias to his family in Norwalk for years of hospitality. Nothing will outshine…”

SONG LYRICS

Make way, make way for Bunny Man! Step back, step back or you’re going down.

Coming through, coming through.

Bunny Man, hopping down the bunny trail,

Let the bells ring, let the milk chalk,

let the corpse hatch, let the dead walk, let the dog sing!

Nothing this year, nothing from here will outshine the smiling face of Evil. Nothing in time, nothing that’s mine will displace the humble trace of Evil.

Let the bells ring!

Hopping down the bunny trail, should be carrying the mail

to the house with a pomegranate tree in the front yard

and the doors always open to the travelers.

Hopping down the bunny track, never look back.

Dropping down the bunny hole to dance with the undermole.

Damas y Caballeros, escuchale la Matemática Negra

de la Carne Idiota, o un Conejo Gigantico

O Las Gorillas Durmiendo en un Museum

Make way, make room for Bunny Man!

Calling… hear this now if you can. Calling through, crawling through, coming too, Bunny Man, let the Gallegos make it through! Down in Norwalk, let the records play. Is it too loud, would the neighbors say?

Let the dog sing? Let the bells ring!

SONG CREDITS

Song and structure by Nils Frykdahl

Parts by Sleepytime Gorilla Museum

Carla Kihlstedt – violin, singing and growling;

Nils Frykdahl – guitar, singing, growling, bells;

Michael Iago Mellender – guitar, growling;