Track By Track: HawaiiWorms – Input : Meaning : Joy

Our good friend and ex-label buddy – and Flange Circus bassist – Pete Collins recently dropped his new HawaiiWorms EP, Input : Meaning : Joy.

So, we obviously asked Pete to send us some words about the EP as part of our Track By Track series. A very big thank you to Pete for doing so, and for giving us such a detailed insight into the songs and music.

For me, the EP doesn’t cross over much with the music of Flange Circus, though it does have an emphasis on using textures and loops to create particular moods. The four songs on the EP cast back to the early and mid-80s, when electronic music was still experimental, sometimes substituting for traditional instrumentation, other times finding new soundscapes and structures.

Pete does both here: there is room for his thunderous basslines, though often less prominent in the mix. The synths find new sounds; the songs eschew pop narratives in favour of something more indie. I have a particular preference for when acts find that golden balance between mood and melody, and that is a constant on the EP.

He does cite one influence on the EP, The Blue Nile, on the vocals. Varying echoes of John Foxx, Japan, Oppenheimer Analysis, music that is laden with meaning and looks inward even as it reaches out to others.

Object Passion

The last song to be written for the EP, it came together surprisingly quickly. I’d bought myself an Ableton Move to try and sketch out loads and loads of basic ideas and then whittle down the best ones to try and expand and polish and mould into something, and Object Passion was one of those – the synth bass and drums were basically fully formed almost immediately on the Move before it even got anywhere near my computer.

The lyrics were inspired by those early Simple Minds records like Empires and Dance, where whatever Jim Kerr was singing seemed a little abstract – I wrote them about 3am one night as they came to me in bed when I couldn’t sleep, as I knew I’d never be able to remember them in the morning.

Creeping Zero

This is the only song on the EP with lyrics written from my own personal perspective. I wrote most of the lyrics while trying to come to terms with my dad’s recent dementia diagnosis, and combined that with some other feelings around abandonment.

The tune itself is slightly more upbeat than I’ve just made it sound! Probably the sparsest song on the EP in terms of arrangement and number of instruments used, and I’m proud of the chord progressions on this.

HeartDust

My attempt to write a song that sounded like another one of my influences, Steven Wilson. It was one that I’d considered for my first EP, but I couldn’t quite write any lyrics I was happy with, so I left it aside.

It’s a story about a man who becomes obsessed with an obscure actress he sees on a straight-to-TV film one night who hasn’t starred in something for quite some time. In the middle bit where I sing “You tore my heart out,” I was attempting to channel Paul Buchanan from The Blue Nile. But who else can sing like him? No one!

Undone

The second half of this song existed for a couple of years prior to me starting HawaiiWorms; I’d written the epic bass ending and the drums for Flange Circus, but we didn’t take the song forward.

I’m so proud of the bassline, and I knew that I wanted to record the song properly, and unleash the bass solo on unsuspecting audiences live, so I wrote the first section with the vocals and brought both halves of the song together, and I had to throw some Mellotron in, as it’s a sound I adore.

The lyrics were inspired by a news story I read about someone living a double life and how utterly stressful, and ultimately pointless, that seemed.

You can acquire Input : Meaning : Joy in digital and limited-edition cassette formats on Bandcamp. It’s also streaming on Spotify and YouTube. HawaiiWorms are gigging regularly in Manchester and beyond – for all the latest gig and music news, follow the project on Facebook, Instagram, or BlueSky.