Cut Worms

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.

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.