Jess Makler (unslump.substack.com)
EXEK’s seventh album and first for DFA, Prove the Mountains Move is a masterpiece of post-punk clarity. It’s the feeling of knowing your way around in the dark, of taking in the world with new eyes, of the nostalgia of a moment before it’s ended. EXEK fuses memory, abstraction and dissonance to create a project that’s one of a kind.
The Melbourne band began tracking the album with the drums, with frontman Albert Wolski and drummer Chris Stephenson recording them back in June 2023 at Pelican Refill Studios. Inspired by the vastness of space, Wolski and the band build each track by layering different takes, letting rhythms guide melodies. The off-kilter cadence of the album is emphasized by flourishes of arpeggiated keys, delayed and reversed percussion, all topped off by Wolski’s signature disaffected drawl. Prove the Mountains Move doesn’t stand still.
Lyrics are nonsensical in their abstraction, adding to the dreamlike landscape. Songs weave languidly, Wolski’s deadpan delivery giving way to trumpeter Valya YL Hooi’s persistently haunting brass embellishments. On “You Have Been Blessed”, the listener is invited to a John Hughes-style 80s prom, with synth-wiz Andrew Brocchi’s luminous keys akin to early Eno or the Psychedelic Furs. “In a past life, I believe you were a bathmat,” sings Wolski on the vibrant “Don’t Answer (When They Call).” “Spotless,” an “ode to the spray bottle,” becomes a study in the dissonance between the familiarity of melody and the dissonance of subject matter.
Warmth wraps around Prove the Mountains Move, despite its surreal emotionality. The album is inventively original. EXEK is taking notes from their post-punk predecessors and propelling themselves into a new space, a lush new world filled with unanswered questions. As Wolski sings on “Arrivederci Back Pain,” “Are you feeling a little strange? So just mix this in your drink.” Our cups are full, and EXEK has left us nourished.