Chicago’s own Black Leather Birds just dropped of Children and Their Sorceries on May 22nd, 2026, and this thing is a goddamn slow-motion trainwreck you can’t look away from. Five tracks. Seventeen minutes. Zero apologies.
This is the solo baby of A.G. Syjuco – the same cat who won the 2018 Independent Music Award in New York for Best Music Producer for Jack of None’s Who Shot Bukowski?. Yeah, that guy. He launched this project back in the 2020 pandemic because apparently sitting still wasn’t an option. His debut EP The Color of Memory (2021) already snagged a Best Experimental Music Video win at both the Munich Music Video Awards and the International Sound Future Awards for “Our Angry Science.” So the dude’s got credentials. And on this new EP? He’s flexing every single one of ’em.
The opener “Nothing Ever Grows Here” kicks things off with this eerie, hypnotic crawl. Four minutes of pure emotional suffocation. Syjuco’s vocals sit right in that sweet spot between a lullaby and a warning. The track’s got this dedication – “For my darling baby, Wenli. Never leave.” – which makes the whole thing hit even weirder when you realise the song’s basically about a place where nothing lives, nothing dies, and clocks don’t even bother ticking anymore. Creepy? Absolutely. Brilliant? You bet your ass.
Then there’s “Monster.” One minute of pure chaos. This track is a deconstruction of “The Witherling” by Jack of None from 2016’s Who’s Listening to Van Gogh’s Ear?. And here’s where it gets cool – Maxine Syjuco (A.G.’s sister) handles the words on this one. Her vocals are this whispered growl that sounds like she’s breathing down your neck in a dark alley. The track moves frantic, intense, and then poof – it’s gone. Most bands couldn’t make a full song this memorable. Black Leather Birds does it in barely over a minute. That’s skill, people.
Alright, let’s talk about “The Box.” Pure psychological horror. This track follows Gerald Mund – just some regular dude whose suburban afternoon gets wrecked when a package shows up addressed to him by name. A UPS box with FedEx tape. Return address looks like “a drunk had wept on it.” The mailman walks a WIDE ARC around it. Then the buzzing starts. Then the smell. Then Gerald realizes the box is breathing. And the best part? He can’t open it. Box cutter won’t cut. Fingers bleed. The box just sits there, indifferent as the ocean.
Syjuco’s spoken word delivery here is absolutely locked in. The music builds tension without ever showing its hand. And yeah, you’ll hear flies buzzing in the mix – that’s intentional, and it works like a charm. This is the kind of track that makes you check your own front porch afterward.
“Almost” comes in at three minutes, and holy hell, this is the centrepiece. Starts off with this sleek, mesmerizing vocal line that’s almost sensual. Then around the 1:20 mark, Syjuco flips the switch into spoken word territory – and the backing vocals during that part are pure genius. There’s drill sounds laced into the melody. A horror-movie theme lurking underneath. The whole track feels like you’re floating in some in-between space, not quite alive, not quite dead. “I am learning my own edges,” he says at one point. Yeah, man. Same.
The closer “Goodnight My Darling” pulls a fast one. After all that dread and tension, Syjuco lightens things up. The harmonics are gorgeous. The musicianship sparkles. Almost sounds like something from a Lemon Jelly record – dreamy, clockwork-like, like you’re watching your whole life from above. It’s unexpected as hell, and that’s exactly why it works.
Look, Black Leather Birds isn’t here to hold your hand. of Children and Their Sorceries is an EP that rewards the brave. The ones who’ll sit in the dark with headphones on and let the unease wash over ’em. Syjuco’s bringing literary spoken word, prose poetry, ritual chants, and straight-up horror storytelling into rock territory – and somehow it all fits.