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 thats made them so greatso EXEK-y.

The Melbourne post-punk outfitvocalist 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 Hepworthrelease Prove The Mountains Move, their seventh album and first for DFA. It is, as Wolski says, a bit more epic than anything hes recorded to date, a lush and unabashedly melodic set of surrealist pop that luxuriates in contradiction. This record is experimental in its craft, Wolski says, but it may not necessarily sound experimental.

Wolski arrived at his most direct work since he launched the project, newly inspired by the clarity and concision of mainstream pop, the strong and undeniable pull of a simple vocal melody. After Melbournes famously stringent COVID lockdowns ended, he found himself wanting to stay out. Working on new music took a distant backseat to raging with friends, he says. And those parties were filled with big bangers as the soundtrackstuff I didnt really listen to on my own, stuff I hadnt really encountered since my adolescence. But in the early hours of Sunday morning, Alive by Pearl Jam sounds like youre talking to God. And so does All I Wanna Doby Sheryl Crow, and so does Feel by Robbie Williams. Krautrock and dub were still in my DNA, but the music that I started to make was perhaps a little more lighthearted, and perhaps a bit more emotional.

Format / LP
Released / 02/27/2026
Catalogue / DFA-2731LP
Barcode / 829732000825
Artist / Exek
Label / Dfa Records
Genre / Pop / Rock