There’s a quiet stubbornness to Cut Worms, a refusal to be pulled fully into the present tense. On Transmitter, the fourth album from Brooklyn songwriter Max Clarke, that resistance hardens into something more reflective, less nostalgic than diagnostic.
Stream Transmitter HERE.
Produced by Jeff Tweedy at The Loft, the record hums with a sense of distance that feels both intentional and inescapable. Clarke’s songs have always drawn from a pre-digital palette, echoing power pop and soft-focus rock traditions, but here that aesthetic becomes thematic. Transmitter is preoccupied with what connection means once it’s been abstracted into signals, profiles, transactions. People as transmitters rather than participants, their lives refracted through systems that promise closeness while quietly flattening it.
There’s a duality embedded in the writing, innocence brushing up against its own erosion. Clarke frames it as the tension between early wonder and the isolation that follows, but the songs rarely resolve that friction. Instead, they linger inside it, stretching small moments into something quietly existential. Tracks like ‘Windows On The World’ and ‘Long Weekend’ drift with an ease that feels deceptive, their melodies carrying a weight that only reveals itself after the fact.
Tweedy’s role is less architect than atmosphere, sketching out rooms for Clarke to move through rather than directing the action. The result is a record that feels spacious but never empty, each detail placed with a kind of offhand precision. It’s a collaboration that bridges generational instincts without smoothing over their differences, allowing the songs to remain slightly out of time.
That sensibility will translate into something more immediate this July, when Cut Worms makes a long-awaited Australian debut. The tour leans away from capital-city scale, threading instead through regional halls and smaller rooms where these songs can settle properly. Joined by John Andrews & The Yawns, led by John Andrews, the run feels deliberately intimate, an antidote to the very disconnection the record circles.
Transmitter doesn’t argue against modern life so much as observe its quiet consequences. It’s a record tuned to a frequency that doesn’t demand attention, but rewards it, unfolding slowly, like a signal you almost miss.
CUT WORMS (USA) DEBUT AUSTRALIAN TOUR WITH SPECIAL GUEST JOHN ANDREWS
Wed 1st July – Mapleton Pub, Mapleton QLD *All Ages
Thursday 2nd July – The Citadel, Murwillumbah, NSW *All Ages
Friday 3rd July – The Eltham, Eltham NSW *All Ages
Saturday 4th July – Black Bear Lodge, Brisbane, QLD
Sunday 5th July – Elm House, Mt Glorious, QLD *All Ages
Tuesday 7th July- The Landsdowne, Sydney NSW
Wednesday 8th July – Franks Wild Years, Thirroul NSW
Thursday 9th July – Gang Gang Cafe, Canberra ACT
Friday 10th July – Old Stone Hall, Beechworth, VIC
Saturday 11th July – Howler, Melbourne VIC
Sunday 12th July – The Bridge Hotel, Castlemaine VIC
Tickets on sale via Jet Black Cat Music
