For just over a decade, Exek has very quietly become one of the

most hypnotic bands on the planet, mutating and growing from

record to record, gradually opening themselves up without ever

losing that strange, inscrutable, altogether essential quality that's

made them so great-so Exek-y.

On 27 February, the Melbourne post-punk outfit-vocalist and chief

architect Albert Wolski, guitarist Jai Morris-Smith, drummer Chris

Stephenson, synth specialist Andrew Brocchi, trumpet-brandishing

vocalist Valya YL Hooi, and bassist Ben Hepworth-will release

Prove The Mountains Move, their seventh album and first for DFA.

It is, as Wolski says, "a bit more 'epic'" than anything he's recorded

to date, a lush and unabashedly melodic set of surrealist pop that

luxuriates in contradiction. "This record is experimental in it's craft,"

Wolski says, "but it may not necessarily sound experimental."

There's good reason for that. Work began on a cold afternoon in

June of 2023, as Wolski and Stephenson came together at Pelican

Refill Studios in Melbourne to track drums-the first thing they

always do. From there, Wolski went home on his own and began

sifting through the beats and breaks they'd captured, letting the

drum sounds guide him towards melodies and basslines, looping

and layering and laying foundation for what would become Prove

The Mountains Move. "I feel comfortable tinkering away alone like

a mad scientist," he says. "I also enjoyed pressing record with no

clear intention. More often than not, that would steer me towards an

interesting direction that my conscious mind probably wouldn't have

sought out."