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Music

Seekae – The Worry

My method of preparation for this review was listening to Seekae’s first two albums, The Sound of Trees Falling on People and +DOME, and those hours were, in a word, blissful. For those of you not familiar with the Sydney act, they’ve been making forward-thinking instrumental electronica for a number of years now, incorporating not only synthesizers, drum machines and samplers, but also guitars, pianos and ethereal vocals, blurring the lines between ‘real music’ and electronic music with their naturalistic approach to the genre. Now, after a couple of years in the studio, and a dense, midlife crisis-esque side project, Seekae have re-emerged from the shadows.

Seekae

The Worry contorts the mind and distorts your senses. Take a wonderful trip down the rabbit hole with that little rabbit known as Seekae.

The Sydney electro trio return to the fold with their forward thinking third album The Worry. A natural progression from their previous work, it contorts the mind and distorts your senses. Take a wonderful trip down the rabbit hole with that little rabbit known as Seekae.
It’s easy to take for granted that there’s practically no vocal work on Seekae’s first two records, because the flow of those albums negates traditional pop structure – it’s a sinuous musical dialog.

On their third record, The Worry, the group pours their years of free-flowing compositional mastery into a more structured mould, the result of which is the most polished, impressive Seekae record to date. If you aren’t already sold on Seekae, The Worry will change that.

This record is Seekae at their most accessible, but the three-piece remain every bit as mind-contortingly, face-distortingly bizarre as ever. Take the lead single, Test and Recognise for example, with it’s watery vocals layered over a sparse detuned synthesizer that refuses to keep quite in key; this track is either steps ahead of the current game, or creating a new game for everyone else to play.

The title track from this record, The Worry is another example. This song would serve as the perfect soundtrack for the opening montage of Mad Max 4; with it’s stuttering bassline and ascending synths, it penetrates the listener with a sense of foreboding and dystopian unease.


Or there’s the track Monster, where a linear arrangement of guitar and drum machine yields dominance to a grand brass-and-clarinet refrain that is not only a compositional highlight, but also a compelling emotional highlight as frontman Alex Cameron croons and resonates throughout this track.

Other highlights on here include the brooding guitar-driven Boys, the catchy, working man’s anthem Still Moving, or the unsettlingly psychotic narrative that is Hands.

The Worry is Seekae at their most engaging, with their substantial compositional prowess streamlined into more rigid, structured tracks that continue to push boundaries and challenge industry clichés. This is a remarkably polished record that shows considered effort and care put into every individual note and beat, making for an album that is unapologetic in it’s obtuseness, and unwavering in it’s brilliance.

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