DIRTY CHURCHES
Jesse Gelaznik and Rachel Blackwell performing at the Owl Music Parlor, 2025.
Dirty Churches is a performance art and experimental music project founded in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in 2004 by Jesse Gelaznik, John Dalessi, Alex Beard, and Joe Robinson. Conceived as a noise experiment, the group's earliest recording, Eat Birth, composed by Jesse Gelaznik, appeared on the Getting Rid of the Glue compilation released by Pendu Sound. In its earliest incarnation, Dirty Churches became known for ear-splitting improvisational performances that combined guitar feedback, dense synthesizer textures, pounding drums, wolf masks, and surreal theatrical gestures, often culminating in one or more performers asleep on the floor amid a whirlwind of sound.
The group's early years featured a constantly shifting cast of collaborators, including vocalist Billy Jones and percussionist Mathew Morandi, while Gelaznik developed a series of guided improvisation scores such as Shoot the Freak (2007), Saint Death (2009), and Bones and Fire (2009). These works laid the foundation for a practice that blurred the boundaries between composed music, free improvisation, and performance ritual.
A pivotal transformation occurred in 2006 when Jesse Gelaznik began an artistic partnership with video artist Rachel Blackwell. Initially creating live scores for Blackwell's films Yes! Witches (2009) and Death for Sale (2007), Gelaznik's music gradually merged with Blackwell's evolving performance practice. As Blackwell began appearing in elaborate handmade costumes and masks inspired by witches, mythological beings, and imagined creatures, Dirty Churches evolved from a noise band into a multidisciplinary performance art collective.
Throughout the following decade, Dirty Churches collaborated with choreographers Alexandra Jacob and Constantine Alexis and became a regular presence in exhibitions curated by artist William Norton, transforming gallery openings into immersive spectacles that fused live music, ritual performance, and mythic storytelling. During this period, Gelaznik's growing interest in classical composition and contemporary concert music increasingly informed the group's work, resulting in ambitious theatrical productions including The Exterminator's Metamorphosis (2018) and Era of Good Feelings (2019), which combined experimental opera, dance, and live sound.
Heather Green and Rachel Blackwell performing ERA OF GOOD FEELINGS at La MaMa Galleria 2019.
When live performance paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, Dirty Churches turned toward filmmaking, creating a series of video works centered on Blackwell's creature performances and Gelaznik's home-recorded sound worlds. As venues reopened, the duo premiered the video opera RUMPLES at the Mattress Factory in 2021 with experimental composer H. Leon Harris. Beginning in 2022, Dirty Churches established an ongoing relationship with WhiteBox in New York, presenting original performance works including Siren (2023), Eater of Hearts (2023), and Power Moves (2025).
Alongside the performance work, Gelaznik's musical practice expanded into analog four-track songwriting. His albums Stuck at the End of Time and Amplified Rainbow Theory (both 2025) introduced a more intimate and melodic dimension to Dirty Churches while retaining the project's fascination with sonic experimentation, mythology, and emotional transformation.
Today, Dirty Churches exists primarily as the collaborative practice of Jesse Gelaznik and Rachel Blackwell. Over more than two decades, Dirty Churches has continually reinvented itself, refusing fixed genres in favor of an ever-evolving artistic language where music, myth, and performance become inseparable.
Contact
Performance
2025 POWER MOVES, Greenbox, Whitebox Gallery, New York, NY.
2024. EATER OF HEARTS, EndGame, Whitebox Gallery, New York, NY.
2023 SIREN, Eldon Garnet: Saved and Drowned, Whitebox Gallery, New York, NY.
2022 The RAVEN, Ballots not Bullets, Whitebox Gallery, New York, NY.
2021 RUMPLES (a Dirty Churches video opera), Mattress Factory Museum, Pittsburgh, PA.
2020 RUMPLES, Songs for Presidents, Brooklyn, NY.
2019 EXTERMINATOR’S METAMORPHOSIS, Picasso Machinery, Brooklyn, NY.
2018 SECOND INCARNATION, La MaMa Galleria, New York, NY.
EATER OF HEARTS, The Williamsburg Art and Historical Center, Brooklyn, NY.
BAD GENIE, Picasso Machinery, Brooklyn, NY.
2017 THE VISITATION, West Beth, New York, NY.
SILVER SUITE, Main Drag Music, Brooklyn, NY.
2016 NIGHT DIVINER, South Street Seaport, New York, NY.
2015 BE GONE / REBIRTH, White Box, New York, NY.
TRANS-WORLD HOLIDAY, Art Helix, 2015, Brooklyn, NY.
2013 AN ORCHARD OF ECHOES, Soho 20 Chelsea Gallery, New York, NY.
A GUEST IN THE CAVERN, Northside Townhall Community and Cultural Center, Brooklyn, NY.
2010 DIRTY CHURCHES – live at BPA, BPA, Brooklyn, NY.
DIRTY CHURCHES - Alive in Texas, Diverse Works, Houston, TX.
2009 RITUALS, 92Y Tribeca, New York, NY.
SAINT DEATH, Pete’s Candy Store, Brooklyn, NY.
2007 DIRTY CHURCHES – Live at Pianos, New York NY.
Opera
2021 RUMPLES (video opera), Mattress Factory Museum, Pittsburgh, PA.
2019 ERA OF GOOD FEELINGS, La MaMa Galleria, New York, NY.
Video Art
2021 EYES IN THE SKY
EVERYTHING BURNS / PAPER SOUNDS
2015 HEARTS ARE DUST
2014 BACCHUS' SKELETON
2010 CASTING OUT 9s’
SPUN NUN / SPUN PREACHER
2009 RITUALS
MEDITATIONS ON DEATH (Symbols)
MEDITATIONS ON DEATH (Ceremonies)
YES! WITCHES
2007 DEATH FOR SALE
Press
“The result is a remix that can’t quite be downloaded.”
- Monica Drake, At Cinema 16, Music and a Happening in Brooklyn, The New York Times.
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/09/arts/09bspare.html
“There is the sense of being trapped, but also the chance to meditate the contours of that trap.”
- Leo Goldsmith, Women of NY Cinema, Not Coming to a Theater Near You.
http://www.notcoming.com/features/womenofnyccinema/
“[T]he works evoke a narrative world particularly unsettling in that it may or may not be a dream.”
- Rufus Lusk, Short Film, Live Score, Huffington Post.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/short-films-live-score_b_305775