Amongst Melbourne’s dense throng of post punk bands, EXEK are blissfully doing their own thing. Rather than echo the agitation or glower of common touchstones like Joy Division or Public Image Ltd, the ensemble have carved out a cleaner, slower and more melodic sound that’s more in sync with Brian Eno’s first few solo albums.
“It’s always hard to answer the question: ‘What do you guys sound like?’,” reflects EXEK vocalist and leader Albert Wolski over the phone. “Because it does fit under the post- punk umbrella, but that can be so many different things.
“We have a broad range of influences across multiple genres. I think Tony Wilson said about Happy Mondays: ‘Just look at their record collection; it’s everything’. They just sound like all the records they’ve got. I think we do the same, to a degree.”
Across seven albums and a dozen years, EXEK have stood out simply by sounding like themselves. “This is going to sound horrible,” Wolski says, “but I think our biggest influence is ourselves. Because you can just uproot and sound like something completely different, but it’s good to stay grounded and have a bit of a through line.”
After maintaining a mostly word-of-mouth following around town for so long, EXEK’s moony, oblique songcraft is about to enjoy a wider audience.
Don't miss a beat with our FREE daily newsletter
That’s because their new record, Prove The Mountains Move, is seeing release through DFA, the Brooklyn record label co-founded by LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy.
While DFA’s output has slowed in recent years, the label remains inexorably tied to the 2000s dance punk explosion of bands like LCD Soundsystem and The Rapture.
A Slow-Burn Approach To Ambition
True to EXEK’s unhurried career arc, Wolski didn’t knock himself out chasing down some dream record deal. He just shot a DM to the label over Instagram, which got the ball rolling.
After all, he had always enjoyed DFA releases – as well as the label’s iconic logo of a hand-drawn lightning bolt – and he knew that the band and label had some overlapping influences.
In other words? They both had deep record collections.
Thanks to the DFA deal, EXEK will head to the US after their hometown album launch in March to play a handful of gigs that include a four-night run in Boston supporting LCD Soundsystem.
It’s not the first time the band have scored a plum support slot: EXEK opened for The Drones at the latter’s local launch for their final album, 2016’s Feelin Kinda Free. That was only a couple years after Wolski convened the band’s first incarnation in Sydney, before relocating to Melbourne in search of a more supportive music scene.
“It was almost impossible to get stuff up and running in Sydney at the time,” Wolski recalls. “There were venue closures everywhere. I saw what was happening in Melbourne and it seemed pretty easy.”
The current version of EXEK includes guitarist Jai Morris-Smith, bassist Ben Hepworth, drummer Chris Stephenson, synth player Andrew Brocchi and backing vocalist and trumpeter Valya YL Hooi.
That line-up has remained fairly set for the past few albums, allowing the six-piece to more fully realise Wolski’s sedate, idiosyncratic songwriting. The new album follows suit, finding majesty in the mundane and often feeling like its own private sound world.
Building Tracks From The Ground Up
Prove The Mountains Move immediately hooks our attention by mingling a bleary synth part with a hypnotic, dusty-sounding rhythm on opener Sidestepping. In fact, so integral is Stephenson’s drumming to EXEK that the songwriting process actually starts with one-on-one brainstorming sessions between him and Wolski.
“I normally beatbox something to Chris,” says Wolski, “and he transcribes it onto a kit. I normally record everything at home, [but] we go to a place where we can make a lot of noise for many hours and just try out ideas.
“At the end of the day, I have several hours of drum noise, basically. Some are proper rhythms that go for a while and others are just a break. I sift through it all and cherry-pick the best parts and see what I can loop out of that. Then I see where the loop can take me.”
After constructing those loops at home, he’ll try out different guitar and synth ideas to see what makes sense.
Rather than start with a strummed guitar and some murmured would-be lyrics, EXEK almost always begin with those piecemeal snatches of rhythm. It’s more akin to how hip hop artists might start with a beat before working their way up to other elements.
“Yeah, totally,” Wolski agrees. “I guess we do sample ourselves. And the guitar and synth parts might not be full melodies, but I’ll find a little blemish and sample that and keep on going with it. And that becomes maybe not the hook, but a staple of the song. My favourites are the ones that kind of write themselves in five minutes. I’m just channelling in.”
Roundabout Balladry
There’s often a lot going in a finished EXEK song, with many distinctive layers at play. Those include a lush guitar tone that evokes not just Robert Fripp’s work on some of those early Eno records, but Richard Pinhas’ playing in the French prog project Heldon.
Having such intricate, cycling parts means that Wolski’s soft-sung vocals and unusual lyrics can sometimes feel like another pair of subtle instruments. Asked about his intuitive approach to writing lyrics, he describes taking walks while listening to his handcrafted home demos.
“I just see what the songs tell me,” he says. “I feel like it’s important not to shoehorn in ideas, but listen to the music and let that guide you.”
When certain phrases do start to slip through and stick in one’s brain, it can feel like an extension of the band’s mysterious, slow-burn appeal. Wolski mentions Japanese jazz in passing on Sidestepping, before arriving at the slogan-like declaration “Our lives are valuable too”.
He references star ratings for films on Don’t Answer (When They Call) and how the momentous American date of 9/11 becomes November 9 in Australia on Tyres. He repeatedly asks the subject not to forget a corkscrew on the closing Chef’s Hat Renaissance, while Visiting Dust Bunnies and Arrivederci Back Pain deliver on the promise of their evocative titles.
“A lot of it is subconscious,” Wolski insists, “but there are songs where the lyrics [resemble] AI or the uncanny valley. Like, ‘I know what you’re saying here, but you’re saying it in a roundabout way’. Like a person with English as their second language. They can be taken different ways.”
In that way, his lyrics sit somewhere between David Bowie’s famous cut-up technique and the wordplay puzzles of Pavement’s Stephen Malkmus. Several songs also evoke the dry bureaucracy of office speak, but that doesn’t mean there’s no emotion behind EXEK’s exquisite layering.
You Have Been Blessed is gorgeous, drifting ballad that sprung from a fluid Hepworth bass line and then blossomed with florid piano from double-duty drummer Chris Stephenson.
“It just spoke these melodies to me: like how the bridge comes in and the chords keep changing,” Wolski reflects. “It morphed into a song that sounds like Lou Reed’s Perfect Day or an INXS ballad.”
Hear If You Need Us
Wolski highly rates Stephenson’s contributions to that standout song, calling him the band’s resident “piano aficionado”. But if Stephenson plays both drums and piano on that and a few other songs, how will that work when EXEK play live?
“I guess those will be the songs we don’t do live,” Wolski says, simply. “There are a lot that we can’t do live, based purely on limitations. Out of our whole catalogue, we’re really only able to play about a quarter of them.”
As for the band’s upcoming foray into the American touring market – complete with a four-night run at Boston’s 3,500-capacity venue Roadrunner – Wolski appears to be characteristically unfussed about EXEK’s commercial prospects.
After all, he may work at the highly regarded music hub Soundmerch for his day job, but he also recounts hoisting a lollipop sign at school crossings before going back to uni to study the music industry and then doing an honours degree in which he wrote his thesis on horror movie soundtracks.
“That’s why I work in a warehouse now,” he deadpans. “I probably should have thought better about that.”
On a more sincere note, he acknowledges that EXEK are always finding new acolytes, despite their relatively low profile. “I don’t worry about it too much,” he says.
“We do get the odd message saying, ‘I just discovered you! You’ve been around for ages.’ Well, yeah, we’re hear if you need us. Enjoy.”
EXEK’s Prove The Mountains Move is out now on DFA Records. Tickets to their Australian album launch are on sale now.
EXEK – 2026 Tour Dates
Saturday, March 14th – The Curtin, Melbourne, VIC
Album Launch
Thursday, April 30th – Boston, Massachusetts, USA
With LCD Soundsystem
Friday, May 1st – Boston, Massachusetts, USA
With LCD Soundsystem
Saturday, May 2nd – Boston, Massachusetts, USA
With LCD Soundsystem
Sunday, May 3rd – Boston, Massachusetts, USA
With LCD Soundsystem
Wednesday, May 6th – Ridgewood, New York, USA
This piece of content has been assisted by the Australian Government through Music Australia and Creative Australia, its arts funding and advisory body
