Early Eyes

with Kate Malanaphy, Huhroon, Anita Velveeta

Tickets | Information

Doors 7:30pm | Show 8:30pm | 18+

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Early Eyes

Early Eyes is a five-piece band from Minneapolis, Minnesota making pop music for the end of the world.

It’s a foreboding time to make pop music. But like a sunbeam peering through a haze of wildfire smoke, Early Eyes have somehow persevered through dashed dreams, fractured relationships, historic social justice uprisings in their own hometown, and a society tearing apart at the seams to make an album that is both responsive to the chaos and wearily optimistic.

“It almost feels like Look Alive! is a direct response to the pandemic,” bandleader Jake Berglove reflects. “It was like, oh, my goodness, all of our capitalist anxieties just came true! We took all of that anxiety and angry energy and put it into making a really fucked up album.”

“The album was not just an expression of all of our frustrations, but also an escape from it,” adds guitarist Joe Villano. “And I feel like the process of making it really carried us through the year.”

Look Alive! (2022) vibrates with angst, punctuated by computerized glitches and disintegrating threads of abandoned melodies that echo in the distance before roaring back to life. A track like “Chemicals” will begin with Early Eyes’ signature buoyant and catchy pop-rock, but as the song progresses it grows more ominous before shattering apart in an earthquake of rattling, subterranean bass.

Kate Malanaphy

Kate Malanaphy’s reason for making music is clear upon watching them perform. Their soul manifests with each song; their fears, loves, and impulses ride atop their voice and instrumentation. The emotion and introspection that they channel into their music is unmistakably recognized and felt in the audience, with evolving, intense rock-band instrumentation to punctuate. Kate’s debut album, Rock, a reeling, indulgent trip through their inner world, comes out on May 4.

Huhroon

By the age of sixteen, Minneapolis-based Huhroon was performing his spoken word all around the twin cities and beyond. However, Huhroon’s singing career began at a much earlier age at the mosque; where his mother would often keep him for roughly half the week. Often imitating the beautifully melodic voices of his favorite reciters, Huhroon began to recognize an inclination towards vocal performance.

Experimentation within the process is an undeniable element of Huhroon’s sound. It’s also a factor in the equation of his growth as a musician. Starting as an escape route, creating music has evolved into a tool for Huhroon to understand the ground on which he exists in this world. Pulling from lived experiences and observations, Huhroon’s heart beats on his sleeve throughout each song. Huhroon’s tender, introspective lyrics and plucky, complex instrumentals create dreamy soundscape destinations. He’s made for us an earthly paradise where safety lies in facing one’s own heaviness.

Huhroon’s ideations normalize shared human experiences, creating room within the claustrophobia and tension of things left unsaid. Being surrounded by creatively inclined friends, who frequently double as collaborators, has set him up with a practice that allows for spontaneity. The band includes Zakariya Khan, Megan Mahoney, Joseph Carl Hays, Ben Farmer, and Kate Saoirse. Their music blends elements of electronic, alt hip-hop, and rock, all in a tight auto-tuned haze. Where the emotion in Huhroon’s music is raw, the vocals certainly aren’t.