Cut Worms - Transmitter (Indies Red Vinyl)

Transmitter is Max Clarke’s fourth full-length record as Cut Worms. Produced by Jeff Tweedy at Wilco’s Loft studio, Transmitter marks a deepening of Clarke’s abilities and the convergence of two artists whose work searches for grace amid dislocation. These are places shaped by the myth of self-reliance, where people sold the idea of connection through technology have been reduced to quiet transmitters—data points bought and sold, manipulated and measured, their lives distorted through the very networks meant to unite them.

The first signs of Transmitter came when Cut Worms were on the road supporting Wilco in the summer of 2024. At the end of the tour, Tweedy invited the band to record at the storied Loft in Chicago, and plans were soon made to commence that fall. In the Loft’s warm clutter of guitars, amplifiers, and books, Clarke and Tweedy quickly found common musical ground and a shared instinct for songs that hold complexity. While Clarke’s voice and writing formed the framework, Tweedy’s guitar and bass lines sketched the rooms the songs inhabit. Tweedy’s presence as a producer revealed itself not in heavy-handed choices but in how he colored spaces and continually offered new textures. Between them, their like-minded sensibilities bridged a generational gap to create something more nuanced than either might have made alone.

If previous Cut Worms releases were steeped in Brill Building decadence and madcap Americana, the sound on Transmitter feels darker, richer, more saturated with the anxiety of contemporary living. “Long Weekend” accelerates time itself, carrying the melodic urgency of Big Star or Dwight Twilley. “Evil Twin” wrestles with bitter disappointment, its talky guitars recalling the jangling heartache of The Replacements and The Go-Betweens, and “Windows on the World” leans toward the sun of the future with a melancholy that drifts somewhere between Elliott Smith and Miracle Legion. Closing track “Dream” brings us back to a familiar plane: Clarke alone at the piano, tender and unresolved, pondering the fate of dreams and the risk of falling short or getting lost en route.

Transmitter finds Clarke in full stride, writing with the conviction of someone who’s made peace with uncertainty. These songs reckon with the cost of comfort and return to the idea that beauty, connection, and love are not luxuries but necessities for survival. Clarke is drawn to paradox—the friction between intimacy and escape, faith and doubt, shadow and light. His forgiveness, like the cut worm’s, comes through transference: the act of releasing something fragile into the noise and trusting it might still be felt.

1. Worlds Unknown
2. Evil Twin
3. Long Weekend
4. Barfly
5. Windows on the World
6. Walk in an Absent Mind
7. Don’t Look Down
8. Shut In
9. Out of Touch
10. Dream