Eric Alan Livingston, a member of the experimental metal group Mamaleek, has died, the band wrote on social media yesterday. The multi-instrumentalist had played with the group since 2015 and joined as a full-time member in 2019. The musician’s cause of death has not been announced. Livingston was 38 years old.

Mamaleek emerged as a duo in 2008 and released a pair of albums in quick succession, one self-titled, the other called Fever Dream. Mamaleek acknowledged links to Beirut and San Francisco’s Bay Area and were said to be brothers. But, in the black metal tradition, they kept their identities vague—even as subsequent releases, like the Enemies List LP Kurdaitcha, drew them further afield from the genre. They collected influences from jazz and spirituals, sometimes incorporating hip-hop electronics. For their 2014 album, He Never Spoke a Mumblin’ Word, they signed to extreme music label The Flenser, where they have remained for four more albums, most recently last year’s Diner Coffee.

Eric Alan Livingston’s first work with Mamaleek came as a percussionist on 2015’s Via Dolorosa. He continued by contributing percussion, keyboards, saxophone, and violin to 2020’s Come & See Me and 2022’s Diner Coffee. He also made the cover artwork for the latter LP.

As a visual artist, Livingston made Mamaleek’s 2020 music video for “Elsewhere.” He also made videos for the Mike Patton projects Mr. Bungle and Dead Cross. He created the visual, too, for “Satanic Planet,” the eponymous song from a project by Lucien Greaves, Luke Henshaw, Dave Lombardo, and Justin Pearson.

In 2019, Livingston created an action figure for Pearson’s band the Locust. The next year, he teamed up with Pearson and his band Deaf Club to design a T-shirt in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. “Please hold your friends and family close. Our time on this planet is limited,” Pearson tweeted after learning of Livingston’s death. “I will forever miss Eric.”

Jonathan Tuite, founder of The Flenser, said in a statement shared with Pitchfork, “We are deeply saddened by the sudden departure of Eric Alan Livingston and extend our heartfelt condolences to his fellow bandmates in Mamaleek, as well as his friends and loved ones.” He continued, “Eric’s extraordinary talent as a visual artist and his ability to inspire and support fellow artists will be unmatched. His infectious personality and positive attitude made him a pleasure to be around and his absence will be deeply felt.”

Greg Werckman, co-founder of Ipecac Recordings, added, “Eric was a longtime, creative contributor/collaborator/friend to Ipecac Recordings. His work was always great and it matched his offbeat and unique personality which made him a perfect fit for us. More importantly though, Eric was an awesome human being with a good soul and warm spirit. Everyone at Ipecac is horribly saddened by this. Peace to his family and all who loved him.”

On social media, Mamaleek wrote:

It is with the heaviest of hearts to report the death of one of our members. Eric Alan Livingston was a close friend to each of us, long before he joined Mamaleek. He was my best mate in middle and high school, which we endured together through the shared love of music. He showed me Devo, Slayer, Iron Maiden, Naked City, King Crimson, and Kraftwerk for the first time, and I was forever changed by its power. Eric had a lot of power that flared within him, which he was able to channel in any medium, whether skateboarding (nollie flips on lock!), art, design, performance, stage production, fashion, activism, comedy…you name it. He dripped personality, as anyone who met him would know immediately. He looked out for us and was extraordinarily generous with his time. We would walk for hours in the evenings and pour our guts out, laughing all the while. It was better than any therapy I ever experienced, and I never wanted those nights to end. I still can’t believe that we took our last walk together, an excruciating reality to bear.

In Mamaleek, Eric played keyboards, saxophone, violin, bells/percussion—anything that he could get his hands on, really. His intuition and free-form style elevated our sound and created an unbridled dynamism that would be hard to behold anywhere else. Eric also designed the celebrated artwork for Diner Coffee. This was a boon to the record, animating it in a visual mode that we previously thought impossible.

For those of you who appreciated Eric’s unique voice, amplified in his extraordinary art and ferocious playing, Eric felt that, and it meant the world to him and to us. Our upcoming performances at Roadburn and Oblivion Access will be in homage to the life and memory of our dear brother and fellow musician, in that order. In the meantime, we encourage you to love and support one another in as many ways as humanly possible.

Rest in power, Eric.