I began Worm in 2020 after releasing This Album Plays Itself! Worm is the sequel to that album, which itself is the sequel to South Wayside and 45. I don’t know if I’ll make another album in the vein of these three albums, but even if I do, I think the trilogy is complete nonetheless. There’s not a heavy conceptual element in any of those albums, but somehow it feels correct for them to be together. Before South Wayside and 45 I made something like 40 albums of various nonsense, much probably not worth listening to, and South Wayside was the first where I was fully comfortable with doing vocals from front to back. It was cool to be able to actualize some of the songs in a fully fleshed out way, as I had never done that vocally before. And songs that I had written years prior could finally be recorded in a way I was satisfied with.

On This Album Plays Itself! I did, essentially, the same thing. But now that I had an understanding of mixing my instruments and my voice, I was able to actually experiment with the songs a bit and go out of my comfort zone as much as possible. It was fun to have a marimba-infused nihilistic folk rock song (“Dead Golf Balls”) within the same tracklist as a paranoid and goofy synthpop song (“Scary Phone!”) and the freedom to go nutso made me very excited to continue working on the album no matter how long it took. And it took a while. On top of that, I was finally able to input and record my keyboard, guitar, and bass, which allowed me to hone the compositions more. Most importantly, I learned how to fucking mix the songs. The mixing certainly wasn’t perfect on This Album Plays Itself!, but it was a hell of a lot better than it was on South Wayside and 45.
And now, on Worm, I’m able to take what I learned from those albums and make something even more chaotic, experimental, pop-forward, and focused. Every song feels drastically different from the last, but there’s a sense of cohesion to it. Then again, maybe there isn’t and I’m just so blinded by the fact that I made all the songs and I’ve been working on it for years. To me, though, the songs flow together well regardless of how different they are. Some songs were noise rock, some gothic, hypnagogic, lofi, post-punk, zolo, noise-pop, alternative, and on and on. And, if you can believe it, I cut an album’s worth of songs from Worm and the primary reason most of those songs were cut was due to the lack of cohesion. There have been 12 tracks, totaling somewhere in the 50-minute range, cut from Worm. I don’t know if they will all see the light of day, but that’s besides the point. What I’m saying is, I didn’t just put the first 11 songs I could think of on this record—in fact, the songs that started this project off were deleted from the final cut.

I don’t know what I’m doing next with music, if I’m going to release anything under the Feck moniker, or if I’ll only continue with Big Shot Lounge, Soundass, Crapstacks, Noel Nubley, etc., or if I’ll just fade behind a little bit. If I don’t make another album, though, I’ll be happy with Worm being what I leave behind. Even if I’m the only one who hears and enjoys it.

Thank you for listening and reading my ramblings. Goodbye