PEEP SHOW: School of Seven Bells’ First Show—At Tonic With a Drummer!—Vs. Last January’s OSCILLATIONS Set

[Photo by Winona Barton-Ballantine]

As they revealed in our extensive cover story Q&A, School of Seven Bells played their first show at Tonic nearly two years ago, a gig where they “experimented in front of everyone.” Thanks to the revelatory archives of YouTube, we unearthed a clip from this very show. While the Deheza Sisters still carry “Sempiternal” with their heavenly harmonies–alongside Benjamin Curtis on buzzsaw guitar and backup vocals–we can see why that whole drummer thing didn’t work out.

To set up a point of comparison, we included the same song in another drastically-different set: our OSCILLATIONS party at (Le) Poisson Rouge a couple months back …