Einstein's Napkin

(2024, Eternal Playground)

Jazzing with Bigfoot

(2024, Eternal Playground and Harvard Square Press)

“Marty Achatz's wildly original (and originally wild) Jazzing with Bigfoot reminds us that making mythology is one of our highest forms of play, one of our deepest delights. Blending ancient traditions of the epic and lyric, and improvisational spirits of modern Jazz and the Beats, these enchanting poem-songs track their hairy hero's adventures through culture from Christianity to Cubism, poetry to rural parenthood, and across habitats from Michigan's Upper Peninsula to traditional Japan to the night sky's constellations. What we see when we catch up is, wondrously, ourselves." 

-Jonathan Johnson, author of May is an Island and The Desk on the Sea

“Jazzing with Bigfoot is funny, audacious, sad, wildly inventive, and smart. It reimagines the concept album, fusing poetry and jazz into a genre-bending exploration of a beloved, elusive creature. Marty Achatz has created a project wholly his own in the intersection of humor and elegy – a delightfully inventive place where we might imagine Mark Twain’s Eve’s Diary meeting an Ira Glass narrative with guest appearances from Walt Whitman, Robert Frost, and Charlie Parker. In this beautifully quirky project, music is not just prelude or fade out: It is woven throughout, and it is companion to poetry. Put your headphones on, slip in, and float here.”

-Cindy Hunter Morgan, author of Harborless and Far Company

“Even before Louis Armstrong, and Ella Fitzgerald, and Joe Pass, Jazzing with Bigfoot was always meant to be. A U.P. gumbo of verbal freeform, mixing George Shiras with Pythagoras, Monet's fuzzy creatures with Robert Frost, Marty Achatz's poems, backed by the quirky, off-kilter jazz excursions of the father-son duo STREAKING IN TONGUES, leads you into the woods, where it's dark, thrilling, and funny as your favorite Saturday morning cartoon. Every phrase holds a Cracker Jack box surprise, every line leads you deeper into a literary thicket that reeks of matted fur, the blood of John the Baptist, and Mother's meatloaf, while Marty Achatz conducts his dauntless search for the spirit of the venerable Bigfoot."

-John Smolens, author of A Cold, Hard Prayer

Christmas with Bigfoot

(2021, Eternal Playground and Harvard Square Press)

“Christmas with Bigfoot is a poetic triumph! Its eclectic mix of dynamic essay and nostalgic ode complements each other well and provides enough holiday verve to brighten anyone’s mood. Bravo!”

-Gerry Davila, Totally Rad Christmas!

“Christmas with Bigfoot, in its braiding of delight and profundity, captures our contemporary journey through these confounding times, and proves that acts of endurance can be—at least in Achatz’s careful hands—peppered with speed-bumps of joy. This is a beautiful, hopeful, and clear-eyed new work.”

-Matthew Gavin Frank, author of Flight of the Diamond Smugglers

“An extension of love against a backdrop of pain and suffering.”

-Hollywood Digest

“An emotional juggernaut.”

-Top Buzz Magazine

“An experimental record as smooth as eggnog.”

-Indie Pulse Music

“Avant-gardism is traded in for a raw strain of storytelling. Christmas with Bigfoot isn’t your traditional holiday record, but it’s one you really need to hear this season.”

-Melody Maker

“Christmas with Bigfoot takes holiday reflections to another level of poetic depth.”

-The Spotted Cat Magazine

“Between the words and the weight of the music, Christmas with Bigfoot is crushing.”

-Vents Magazine

“Christmas with Bigfoot is a self-contained odyssey.”

-Medium

“There’s really no walking away from Christmas with Bigfoot without feeling something. STREAKING IN TONGUES and Marty Achatz are a match made in heaven.”

-Indie Shark

“Another treasure of a tracklist. Christmas with Bigfoot would look rather terrific nestled beneath the Christmas tree beside a record player.”

-Daily Pop News

“Christmas with Bigfoot explores mysteries around every corner. Marty Achatz shines in a leading role.”

-ballyhoo

Slow Dancing with Bigfoot

(2021, Eternal Playground and Harvard Square Press)

“In his innovative new spoken word poetry project, Slow Dancing with Bigfoot – a hybrid collaborative album/book scored by the ethereal music of the father/son duo STREAKING IN TONGUES – two-time Upper Peninsula poet laureate Marty Achatz interrogates the parameters of myth and of monster and, in doing so, finds a way to imbue both with such an achingly fragile humanity.”

-Matthew Gavin Frank, author of Flight of the Diamond Smugglers 

“Undeniably affectionate and often beautiful. Note-perfect. 5-Stars.”
-Indie Shark, Pick of the Week and Album of the Year Nomination, 2021 

“If you’re a fan of David Lynch films (or his music, did you know he makes music?), Slow Dancing with Bigfoot might be for you. There’s an almost punk sensibility to the thing. Not punk in the boots and braces kind of way, but in the ‘we’re getting away with something ridiculous, but it’s working.’ It’s the kind of insane balancing act that’s astonishing to see play out across the 15 tracks.”
-Entertainment Eyes

“Ambitiously hilarious, and yet deeply heartfelt. The guitar work and atmospheric, musical dronings work in tandem with Achatz’s lofty poetry and raise it towards something one of a kind. As often as the album could take low-hanging fruit along its journey, it never does and achieves great heights because of such lofty swings. ‘Elephants Are the Only Animals That Cannot Jump Or, An Elephant Leap of Faith’ feels like something out of the catalog of Sufjan Stevens. There’s a shared texture between Achatz’s poetry and the soft, intricate work of STREAKING IN TONGUES; the fact that the music is performed by a father-son duo lends itself to such sensitivities. There’s nothing like Slow Dancing with Bigfoot, this incredible little piece of poetry and music.”
-NeuFutur Magazine

“It's not quite the feeling of campfire stories, but it's like making up tales with friends at sunset on a summer day. The album feels very whole and complete and the sounds that accompany the lyrics only help emphasize that kind of kaleidoscopic vision of this fun little anomaly. For something that tells the various stories of a famous mythological figure, it's one of the most human pieces of music I've heard this year.”
-The Indie Source

“There is plenty to love within Slow Dancing with Bigfoot, but the one thing in particular that never seems to leave is the distinct voice and writing style of Marty Achatz. His pursuit of an insider’s look at the maligned humanity within one of America’s most discussed mysteries could have ultimately fallen short, but Achatz never lets up and injects the fifteen poems with a great deal of compassion and benevolence.”
-Too Much Love

“This is one of the more worthwhile releases I’ve encountered during 2021. It’s difficult to envision a more fruitful marriage of music and poetry.”
-Medium

“There are a wealth of riches awaiting listeners. Slow Dancing with Bigfoot demands to be explored.”
-The Magic Pen

“If you are a reader of poetry and love folk-inspired guitar arrangements, this is an album you will enjoy from beginning to end.”
-Hollywood Digest

“Wildly charming. These stories will linger in your head. It’s a dance you won’t soon forget.”
-Daily Pop News

“Slow Dancing with Bigfoot is a gem.”
-Vents Magazine 

Live from Lockdown

(2020, Eternal Playground)

“The father and son duo has yet to slow down in their efforts to marry noise melodicism with a poetic folk simplicity. And whether you’re a fan of the left-field folk this pair makes their living on or not, you’re bound to feel something from the thirteen songs this amazing new record contains. Simply put, this is a five out of five star outing without question.”

-Vents Magazine 

“On Live from Lockdown, STREAKING IN TONGUES’ 2020 installment of their growing discography of pure indie gems, the father-son pairing give us access to some of their most revered compositions through a dynamic real-time performance that binds all of their eclectic elements together in a singular strand of sonic ribbonry.”

-NeuFutur

“STREAKING IN TONGUES deliver the only must-listen quarantine album of 2020. Brooding and startlingly progressive in its most evocative moments, Live from Lockdown is further evidence of the magic this father and son seem to produce whenever they sit down to make music together, and as far as I’m concerned it’s the jewel of their present discography. It might not have been constructed with a mainstream audience in mind, but for those with a taste for the postmodern, STREAKING IN TONGUES’ new LP is a masterpiece.”

-Indie Pulse Music

“This father and son take their ambitions to a new level of artistic provocativeness. It’s unrehearsed and unpredictable, but Live from Lockdown is also unbeatable if you’re a fan of real, undisputedly alternative music.”

-Indie Shark, Album of the Year Nomination, 2020

“Another lo-fi wonder. Live from Lockdown is a light in the dark, a beacon of humility and humanity in a chapter of history celebrating anything and everything but. STREAKING IN TONGUES hit another homerun here.”

-Daily Dose Report

“Live from Lockdown is a statement about modern times, but even more than this, it’s the culmination of a long and labored cultivation process that has led these two players to making some of the best music they ever will—together or separately.”

-Mob York City

“There aren’t many acts in or out of the North American underground circuit that have the kind of natural elegance and emotional reach that STREAKING IN TONGUES do, and whether this is because of their relationship as father and son or simply being gifted musicians, it’s made Live from Lockdown an instant classic.”

-The Hollywood Digest

“STREAKING IN TONGUES makes it perfectly clear that they’re not interested in reliving the past on this live record—truthfully, they’re doing the exact opposite. Live from Lockdown is a sterling effort from a duo that has been raising an eyebrow or two with every LP they’ve stuck their name on. They keep raising the bar for themselves and their scene.”

-Daily Pop News

“Even if this is your first time listening to STREAKING IN TONGUES, I don’t think you’re going to have a hard time picking up on their authenticity. We’re listening to familial creativity in the most literal sense possible, and for my money, it’s producing what could be one of the best records of its kind to arrive this year.”

-Entertainment Eyes

“They’re not trying to be avant-garde—STREAKING IN TONGUES are merely being themselves. Steeped in raw, lo-fi psychedelia and surreal alternative folk alike, to say that STREAKING IN TONGUES’ sound is as one of a kind as it gets might not be doing it the justice it deserves.”

-Skope Magazine

Oh My Darlin'

(2019, Eternal Playground)

"Oh My Darlin' is the most imminently listenable and emotionally eviscerating offering from STREAKING IN TONGUES yet. Ronnie and Elliott Ferguson continue to refine their craft, creating music that's endearing and engaging. Slowly building a repertoire of challenging records covering difficult subject matter, the father/son duo has refined their distinct brand of lo-fi experimental folk music into their most coherent and powerful artistic statement yet. Oh My Darlin' explores love and divorce in frequently-uncomfortable terms, but its unflinching nature and careful construction make it the band's most gratifying listen."

-We Are Mirrors, Best Albums of 2019

“Surreal soundscapes that demand as much of a reaction out of us through the texture of their melodies as they do the substance of their soulful lyricism. I didn’t know if they were going to be able to top the majestically postmodern tour de force that was Kindergarten Prayers, but I am happy to report that STREAKING IN TONGUES’ Oh My Darlin’ is every bit the refined successor most critics (myself included) had hoped it would be.”

-Indie Shark, Pick of the Week and Catch of the Month

“Trying to predict what’s going to come at us next in this tracklist is like trying to pinpoint when and where a hurricane is going to land some twenty years from now. STREAKING IN TONGUES’ Oh My Darlin’ is an undisputed classic and an album for the ages.”

-NeuFutur

“Ronnie Ferguson and his extraordinarily talented son Elliott deliver a record that borrows equal parts from Songs of Pain, The Velvet Underground, Rain Dogs and A Saucerful of Secrets, but is inevitably recognizable as being theirs and theirs alone. Oh My Darlin' is a melodic lo-fi masterpiece."

-Indie Pulse Music

"STREAKING IN TONGUES sample ambient, experimental, noise, folk, traditional singer/songwriter music and garage rock influences in Oh My Darlin', and even if it might be the most angular album that this pair has released so far, it's also one fo the most important records to hit stores this October."

-Too Much Love

“STREAKING IN TONGUES reestablish themselves as melodic marksmen capable of finding something glittery in even the grimmest of sonic environments. Oh My Darlin’ is one of the best of 2019. Five stars, without a doubt.”

-Skope Magazine

“They come to us haggard in one track and glistening in another, but no matter what occasion on which we’re visited by the simple string harmonies that dominate the whole of STREAKING IN TONGUES’ Oh My Darlin’, we’re met with just as much of a storyteller in their vibrations as we are in the powerful, emotion-filled lead vocal. The chemistry that this duo has can only be found in familial musical groups, and specifically between the collaboration of a father and son, and it’s incredible to hear it experimented with in such a freeform capacity.”

-The Indie Source

“In the last couple of years, critics have come to adore STREAKING IN TONGUES for their home-style harmonies and breathtakingly emotive experiments in noise and pop nuance, and what they deliver unto us in Oh My Darlin’ might be the quintessential release of their career together.”

-Independent Music and Arts, Inc.

“On the surface, STREAKING IN TONGUES take a twisted carnival soundtrack and inject it with smart, self-aware lyrical fodder in ‘Irrational Blues,’ but when we look deeper at this song – and all fourteen of its tracklist neighbors in the brand new album Oh My Darlin’ – we discover an emotional ballad that is as driven by acidic jazz rhythm as it is broken folk melodies. In all of the songs that come out of the shadows following ‘Sure as Heaven,’ there’s a confidence that you just can’t find in popular music anymore, and it’s generated by both the assault of STREAKING IN TONGUES and the vibrancy of the music they create when they’re performing in total synchronicity.”

-Vents Magazine

"The harmonies float as high as the heavens can take them in 'Wait Wait Wait Wait Wait for Me,' and while STREAKING IN TONGUES stir up a similarly transcendent vibe in the Harry Nilsson-reminiscent 'Inside out and on My Ass,' they're no less a captivating gem as they are in the violent 'Sunlight of a Thousand Babes,' cowpunk swing tune 'Sure as Heaven' or the self-explanatory 'Irrational Blues.' In STREAKING IN TONGUES' latest record Oh My Darlin', the father and son-led band tries what other artists are often too hesitant, or too inept, to attempt, and to say that the results are some of the finest that the avant-folk scene has heard this year would be just too great an understatement for anyone to make."

-Music Existence

“Oh My Darlin’ is an LP defined by its dualities, and in a startlingly single-threaded chapter of pop music history, it’s all the more a diamond in the rough because of the diverse array of compositional styles it weaves together so perfectly. The father-son pairing absolutely kills it.”

-Gashouse Radio

Kindergarten Prayers

(2018, Eternal Playground)

“Kindergarten Prayers is a melting pot of fundamental melodies, and it reminds me a lot of what our world is starting to look and feel like; a diverse collection of amazingly unique tones, each with something special to offer. From one song to the next, it’s like we’re being sucked into a vortex of raw colors that are merging together to create something we’ve never seen before. It’s grainy in the most elegant way you can imagine and it ends up, perhaps unintentionally, being one of the most articulate albums of the latter half of the decade.”

-No Depression

"The last album by STREAKING IN TONGUES Life Support hinted at the kind of maturity they display on this record, but nothing could have prepared us for its shimmering tonality. Kindergarten Prayers is like an animated dream sequence that plays out before our very ears one scene after another, each more exquisitely indulgent and provocatively severe than the one that preceded it. STREAKING IN TONGUES takes us on a different adventure every time they record a record, and in this case, the theme is definitely innocence itself, and the way that chief songwriter Ronnie Ferguson goes about unfolding this story is spellbinding to put it mildly."

-Indie Band Guru

“There isn’t another record out this year that is as stylishly experimental as Kindergarten Prayers is, and even if the idea of an album as eclectically compiled as this one is a little intimidating, trust me when I say that this is an exceptionally accessible slice of avant-garde gold. This is the best album I’ve reviewed this year, and the competition doesn’t even start to come close with this one. Kindergarten Prayers is a record that requires a lot of attention, but if you’re inclined to sit down and really give music the focus that it deserves, you’re in store for a magical journey led by a father and his young son that will introduce you to the darkest and most opulent of melodies you’re going to hear in the 2010's presented in stunning technicolor.”

-Vents Magazine

"When it Comes to Dreaming", "Cold Summer Tent Revival", "Your Arms", "Around in the River", all three title tracks and "Little Country Boy" could have formulated a complete album worthy of a Grammy nomination all on its own, but that wasn't enough for STREAKING IN TONGUES. There's such a myriad of content included in Kindergarten Prayers that it's almost like three awesome records compiled into one mega-anthology of sonic treasures. This is the thinking music fan's record of the year."

-Indie Shark, Album of the Year Nomination, 2018

“I’ll be the first to say that this album is all over the place, but the pure, authentic spirit behind STREAKING IN TONGUES merits the band more attention than they currently receive. It’s long and sometimes tedious, but Kindergarten Prayers is avant-garde and anti-folk at their best.”

-We Are Mirrors, The Best 18 Albums from 2018

“Kindergarten Prayers is such a viciously unpolished record from a band capable of unbelievable melody that it defies the logic of virtually everyone in the western pop music establishment. There’s no need to argue; Daniel Johnston shaped alternative music more than almost any other singer/songwriter of his time, and his presence and legacy can be located in a lot of today’s pop from one end of the spectrum to the next. Listening to STREAKING IN TONGUES reminds me a lot of listening to Daniel’s Austin recordings; they’re scattered and joyously insular, but beneath their rough exterior exists a harmony and relatability that is unparalleled, unmatched in its intimacy.”

-The Indie Source

"Art is completely subjective and no two people will look at or listen to the same work and gather the same interpretation; it just isn't possible. But one of the coolest things about Kindergarten Prayers is how it almost puts up a shield against us reading into it. STREAKING IN TONGUES doesn't want us to overly translate their music. They want us to take it in for what it is and let the framework settle in a little. Five or ten years from now, I think critics are going to have a lot of spirited debates over what this album really means. None of them will ever get it right, because when this band recorded this they didn't do anything wrong."

-Gashouse Radio

Life Support

(2016, Eternal Playground)

"The 12 ramshackle, experimental tracks recall both Elliott Smith and Daniel Johnston in their raw interiority and desperation. Like similarly-themed records, Sufjan Stevens' Carrie & Lowell and this year's A Crow Looked at Me by Mount Eerie, it's a gauntlet of a listen, but a work of sterling quality."

-Spirit You All, Best Albums of 2016

"When you hear the music and the voice of Ronnie Ferguson, your pulse slows down...it's beautiful and delicate, raw, a poetry unvarnished. Ferguson's songwriting connects to and kindles the honesty and vulnerability of eclectic troubadours, namely Elliott Smith, but also Sufjan Stevens, Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Gillian Welch, Tom Waits, Beck, or the original heart-on-the-sleeve stylist, Brian Wilson."

-Deep Cutz

Knocky-Boo

(The Eternal Playground)

(2015, Eternal Playground)

"Ferguson's songs are the perfect mix of sweet and sour; tales of disappointment and addiction as agents of wonder and joy. Deadpan one-liners sung just out of tune bring to mind early Wayne Coyne and Isaac Brock without sounding like he's trying for either."

-Ghettoblaster Magazine

"STREAKING IN TONGUES' inaugural offering is definitely a full body workout: one part absurdist, two parts shock therapy, and three parts theological stew. Oh, and yes, musical landscapes and lyrical jaunts that are strikingly new and fairly outrageous...not something one should take sitting down."

-Paul Patton, author of Prophetically Incorrect