'Worms Can Talk' - Eek [AGRADE006]
In Worms Can Talk, Eek conjures a world of noise-fuelled plunderphonic depravity.
Eek’s Worms Can Talk is the latest addition to Naarm label Anterograde’s ever-growing oeuvre of abrasive and experimental electronics, alongside records by Hexdebt and Female Wizard. Running at just over twenty minutes, Worms Can Talk is a noise album composed completely in iMovie, which Eek describes as a “plunderphonic virus kinda project.” The artist wields source material as sonic substance - easter eggs that are personal rather than culturally referential; “internet spaces, games, meme and cinematics” all find their place here.
The album opens with harsh industrial noise, rapidly giving way to choral pads over which a disembodied voice hurls abuse. The listener can scarcely piece together a narrative before a glitchy wash of metallic and digital noise moves the track along.
Eek demonstrates a compelling quality of crafting equally beautiful and ethereal moments for every exercise in harshness. The noisier moments echo the music of The Haxan Cloak, while the (briefly) tranquil breathers don’t sound far off the icy synths of a record like Prurient’s Frozen Niagara Falls.
“Brother” - the second track - is a collage of barely perceptible pop culture references compressed into 14 seconds of harsh audio. The meme quality of the track is simultaneously humorous and clever. “Brother”, as well as many of the tracks on the record, tend to be on the shorter side, which ranges from a mere thirteen seconds to just over four minutes, though the songs’ intrigue reside in making their point quickly before ushering us along to further sonic tirades.
“Echo Siren, La Return” presents us with rhythmic bursts of vocals and percussion, luscious pads and choral vocals, like if Wolf Eyes had composed the Halo soundtrack. Funnily enough, Halo 2 is in fact listed among the samples.
“We’re Fucked” and “Free Will Doesn’t Exist” are extended dirge-like blasts. The former sounds like laptop sub bass distortion on steroids, while the latter resembles a fire-breathing dragon. Though abstract and abrasive, the sounds that Eek assembles are certainly evocative and contain much that the original source material does not.
A complete list of samples is given on the album’s Bandcamp page, citing numerous video games, Moodymann, Warhammer 40K and many others. Though the sonic material is plentiful, Eek’s intention does not seem to sit purely at postmodern pastiche. Rather, Worms Can Talk presents a series of compelling and unique musical vignettes through flashes of both familiar and unrecognizable audio
“Earthish” stands out among the track list as one of the few songs where the source material has room to breathe. About halfway through the track we hear a soulful female voice crooning over a piano (“all I want is an everyday man”), ear-splitting noise synchronizing with ‘conventional music’, if only for a moment.
On “Polly”, we are treated to a voice maniacally repeating “Do you hear the voices too” over a sea of noisy ambiance. Textural clicks, whirrs and harp strings create a rich soundscape, pulling the listener into some unknown and macabre universe.
On “Thankfully a New Civilization”, footsteps splash in water, evoking a shipwreck before an assault of mechanical and overbearing gunfire. It is moments like these where the unique methodology of assembling the tracks in iMovie makes sense, in that the album is highly image based. Without their visual counterparts, sounds become abstract musical ideas and when repositioned with each other, they acquire new emotions and associations.
“Idk (runt track)” is a fitting closer to the album, opening with a sharp percussive electronic beat which is quickly lost in a swarm of vocals and gunshots. Over this, a dramatic pop vocal seems to lament the apocalypse as it happens in real time, in which drum laden horns and stretches of lasers cross over the listener’s ears.
Worms Can Talk is impressive not only for the fact that it was composed completely in iMovie, but for the perverse and fantastical marvels that Eek is able to conjure up with just a basic video editing program. Though an esoteric and abrasive album, Eek sports a snide and surprising contemporary humor peaking through the central allusions to death, depravity and revelation.
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Article by Adam Hollander (@aduardo_adalini)
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