Fifteen years can pass in the blink of an eye… or feel like a lifetime. When Jesse Sykes & The Sweet Hereafter last appeared at Roadburn in 2011, the band were, in Jesse’s own words, “on fire”: riding the release of Marble Son, playing shows that felt incandescent with possibility, leaving behind moments that have lingered long in the memory. And then, quietly, Jesse stepped away. What followed was a long period of absence. From stages, from records, from the public eye. A period shaped by loss, upheaval, and the slow, difficult work of finding one’s way back.
That return has now taken form in Forever, I’ve Been Being Born, an album of extraordinary emotional gravity and grace. Stripped back to its bare essence, the music moves with a hushed intensity, carrying themes of renewal, impermanence, love, grief, and becoming. Not as declarations, but as lived truths. The songs don’t surge into attention, they just settle into you, unfolding with the patience and weight of memory itself. There’s a tenderness here that feels hard-won rather than fragile, shaped by experience, and it lingers long after the final notes fade.
At Roadburn 2026, Jesse Sykes returns after fifteen years with a radically intimate incarnation of The Sweet Hereafter: a barebones setup featuring just Jesse and long-time collaborator Phil Wandscher. Of the invitation to return, Jesse reflects:
“To be invited back to Roadburn is an incredible honor, and we feel truly blessed, as it was such a revelatory experience for us back in 2011, the year Sunn O))) curated the festival. I remember feeling as if I could have levitated off the stage, because the room’s energy was so intense and pure.
“This time we will be performing as a duo – something about the stripped-down version of our music feels more exciting to me right now than the full band, because it makes the torrent of fury contained within certain songs more focused and deliberate – more beautiful – and I suppose more sorrowful.
“We hope this very intimate performance has us conjuring new offerings from inside our songs, and we hope the audience can be taken on what I hope will be a majestic journey with us, especially if they are in need of a gentle, melancholic respite.”
More than a comeback, this performance will be an act of presence. A moment shaped by time passed, loss survived, and the quietly powerful decision to step back into the light, into the now. Jesse Sykes’ return to Roadburn is an opportunity to listen closely, feel deeply, and sit with songs that understand how precious, and how fleeting, everything truly is.
– José Carlos Santos
