HEKKA - everywhere i go my body goes with me LP

sydney based trio HEKKA release their long awaited full length opening salvo 'everywhere i go my body goes with me' - a multi-faceted and idiomatic record which marries driving rock aesthetics, meditative sonic landscapes and fluttering electronics, culminating in a work which stands at the forefront of the pantheon of contemporary instrumental music.

written, arranged and recorded between 2019-2021 in the unprecedented climate of lockdowns, reopenings, alarms, crisis and quiet hysteria, the trio - novak manojlovic, jacques emery and tully ryan - relished the few opportunities they were able to meet and develop the music around a fractured sydney. the result is a gritty, frustrated, paroxysmal work full with both anxious questions and stoic resolve - a true product of place and time.

here, the band’s influences are more apparent than on their debut 2018 EP ‘wrecker’ - fuzz-heavy bass and guitar feedback redolent of 90s shoegaze carry the opening track 'very little light' while 'we are now' descends from a byzantine clave informed by craig taborn into a head nod reminiscent of robert hood. 'close to the chest (& between the ribs)' and 'road' - tracks both probing and vulnerable - are luxurious gulps of air before the record plunges down again into the thrilled intensity of 'oil slick' and the prog rock-like chaos of 'it’s a chimera!'. the album closes with the eponymous track which fades slowly into nothingness beneath a mosaic of electronic blooms and a repeated folkish refrain.

it is a record of anxiety - of spectres and chimeras and malevolent imaginings - and through this sinister labyrinth we, the listeners, can follow only the music. it promises a reprieve. it promises some light.