It is difficult to comprehend, especially in this era of absolute cultural saturation, that the vast majority of music ever created will never be heard again. Before the invention of recorded sound, music was a fleeting phenomenon—something that happened once, never to be played in the exact same way again. While the age of recorded music seemed to end that vulnerability, the fascination with vanished art has grown, serving as a window into the prejudices and hierarchies that determine the canon. In our time of abundance, forgetting music has become an act of political erasure. One such case is the long resurrection of Julius Eastman.
Listening to the music of Eastman is a revelatory process. Some of the most iconoclastic songwriters of our time have become infatuated with his work. Whether it is the buoyant, springtime bounce of “Joy Boy” or the torrential, skeletal intensity of “Evil N—–,” Eastman’s compositions are jolting and confrontational. They are as vicious as a punk anthem and as beautiful as modern ambient pop. These are not merely suites or symphonies; they are visceral experiences.
The first major revelation came in 2005 with the release of Unjust Malaise, a compilation pieced together after a decade of excavation by composer and lecturer Mary Jane Leach. Before this, Eastman was vanishingly close to being lost forever. He died on May 28, 1990, in a Buffalo hospital at the age of 49. For eight months, almost nobody noticed. He had spent his final decade in destitution, his scores and manuscripts scattered during an eviction in 1982. That rupture occurred just as he was producing his most vital work, including the masterpieces “Evil N—–,” “Crazy N—–,” and “Gay Guerrilla.”
The Radical Ethos of Julius Eastman
The titles of that triptych embody the confrontational ethos of Eastman’s work. He was a gay Black man operating among conservative cultural institutions in a time when homosexuality remained criminalized and civil rights were still under siege. Yet, he compromised on nothing. In a 1976 interview, he stated, “What I am trying to achieve is to be what I am to the fullest: Black to the fullest, a musician to the fullest, a homosexual to the fullest.”
In the wake of Unjust Malaise, Eastman began to be worked into the repertoires of concert halls across America. Few have committed themselves to this project as thoroughly as the Los Angeles ensemble Wild Up. Led by Christopher Rountree, the group has dedicated years to performing and recording all of Eastman’s surviving work. For Rountree, the process has been transformational, catalyzing a new approach to rehearsal and performance that rejects the factory-floor mentality of the classical conservatory.
A Legacy of Tragic Relevancy
The fifth volume of Wild Up’s anthology centers on “Gay Guerrilla,” Eastman’s most totemic work. It draws on the characteristics that mark him as a singular figure: queered allusions to Lutheran hymnals, passages of unbearable tension, and sudden explosions of melodic ecstasy. As the project continues, it serves as a fitting metaphor for Eastman’s resurrection—a movement dependent not on institutions, but on counter-cultural figures and scholars who happened to be paying attention.
The confrontational politics of Eastman feel familiar today, resonating alongside contemporary artists for whom uncompromised Blackness is the art itself. However, as Wild Up’s project continues, the music has been imbued with a tragic political relevancy. When funding for their work was suddenly revoked by administrative changes, it served as a stark reminder that the erasure of artists who challenge the hypocrisies of empire is not a historical artifact—it is a present, active threat. Thirty-six years after his death, Julius Eastman remains at an inflection point, living on through his beautiful, defiant music.