Never did we think it could get this bad. Alongside the frankly evil cost of living, prohibitively expensive rehearsal spaces, and the fact that even finding a grassroots venue in which to make strange noise can be an arduous task, it is a very bleak time to be a young band in the UK. And yet, against all odds, a wave of ambitious, genre-bending guitar music is sweeping the land. Moin, Still House Plants, Tara Clerkin Trio, Squid, Maruja, Quade, The Orchestra (For Now), and caroline have all released music in the last few years that has taken the raw power of rock music and splintered it into something far more beautiful and interesting. It feels like the UK once more has an underground guitar music scene that is the envy of the world.
The latest group to soar in this slipstream is Ex Agent, the earthen force of Evo Ethel (vocals, guitars, saxophone), Eve Rosenberg (bass, effects), Alfie Hay (guitar, effects), Aidan Surgey (drums), and Archie Ttwheam (keys, woodwinds). The quintet all met after moving to Bristol from the surrounding areas, and belong to a thriving scene already boasting the likes of Tara Clerkin, Quade and Bingo Fury, and are keen to testify to the impact that the South West city has had on shaping them. “It feels like one big community here, rather than lots of separate subcultures,” says Ethel. “Everyone plays together, whether they’re a metal musician, a noise musician, or a jazz musician, and it feels like the last two or three years have seen the experimental community come out of the woodwork.”
“We’re also very inspired by lots of music from here. Maximum Joy, The Pop Group, Rip Rig And Panic, Movietone…” says Rosenberg. “Those are like the Bristol grail for me. Loads of people talk about trip hop but it’s always the stuff that sounds nothing like that that is most interesting for me”
“The city just has an ethos,” adds Ttwheam.
Following a stellar debut single, ‘Clutch/5’, in 2023, their debut EP New Assumptions is now available exclusively to tQ subscribers. In just a thunderous 16 minutes, it fashions blistered no wave collages out of skronking guitars, noirish jazz piano, and fragile, spidery sprechstimme monologues – genuinely volatile, uncomfortable music that combines the cinematic high drama of post rock with jazz detritus and the gristly, sinewy guitar noise of Albini, Ranaldo or Branca at their butchering best.
The EP itself begins with the eye-wateringly brilliant ‘New Assumptions’, a song which, from its bombastic opening bars, sets the tone for the rest of the EP. Discordant, soaring guitar chords and a violin drone clash with a militaristic thump of bass and drums, Ex Agent setting into an almighty collective stomp from the off. “Me and Evo spend a lot of time at my house randomly throwing things back and forth,” Ttwheam says. “It started out as an accordion and acoustic guitar duet, where the chords kept ascending and ascending, never stopping. It was written as a conversation between two parts of the band. The more ‘melodic’ instruments are playing one part in unison, and the drums and bass are playing another.”
“I came to Archie with a bunch of ascending chords I’d written,” adds Ethel, “that were just… uncomfortable to listen to.”
As with all of the best groups of this nature, Ex Agent are masters of tension and release – marrying movements of chaos and fragility. They conjure an almighty storm, allow it to subside just long enough for Ethel’s spidery vocal etchings to be heard atop the hurly-burly, and then get straight back into a truly cathartic climax.
Throughout ‘New Assumptions’, Ethel’s vocals are a kind of spoken word monologue, a frenetic stream-of-consciousness barrage, that matches the freak of the instrumental storm. “I do a lot of journaling and subconscious writing, and then cut it all up and Frankenstein it into something,” they say of their lyrics. “Often the broader meaning will come later, but despite this I think they form a cohesive narrative.”
The next track, ‘…’, is a 25-second bacchanal of pure noise rock hedonism, an interlude of such cathartic guitar squall that its fleeting runtime has no ill bearing on the impact crater it leaves. Then, ‘And The Way She Shakes His Fist At Them’ is a jazz instrumental of the cabaret persuasion: brooding, whiskey-soaked. “When we started the band, Ethel recounts, “we were very inspired by film noir. The name of the band comes from an imagined, hypothetical idea for a film noir I had of my own, about an ex agent losing his mind, and we used that as a jumping off point.”
A sumptuous cut, with intertwining clarinet and saxophone played by Ttwheam and Ethel respectively, and table-tapping percussion evoke black-and-white filmic dive bar scenes, it provides a welcome breath ahead of what comes next.
‘Jessie’s Christ’ is possibly the EP’s highlight, a perfect microcosm of why Ex Agent are among the most exciting bands to emerge to a wider audience this year. The whole group hop around frantically in tandem, shapeshifting constantly; a fire-breathing noise-rock unit one minute, scratchy vaudevillian theatre the next. A collage structure sees an intro of chugging, industrial guitar clang and frenzied percussion, which then settles into a dark, piano-led art-punk galumph, and then a spiralling Slint-like post hardcore section – the perfect platform for Ethel to lay down some banshee cackles and howls.
“It started off as two or three different songs,” bassist Rosenberg explains. “But I was insistent that we placed them all together.”
“And I thought the parts all sounded too jolly,” retorts Ttwheam. “So I came up with a really horrible piano part. Most of my contributions to the band can be read like that.”
‘Credit Song’ is the closer in every sense, and it sees the group settle into something more patient and glacial. Delicate guitar lines laden with harmonic flourishes recall tender American post-rock, and as a mixture of ethereal backing vocals, oscillating piano and soaring cornet take hold of the track, it reaches a blissful state of ecstasy, the perfect digestif to the previous track’s chaos.
New Assumptions…, then, is testament to a group of people who are absolutely in musical synchronisation with one another. Bold and brilliant, the five-piece, alongside a few crucial collaborators, traverse so many different styles effortlessly on their way to creating a brand of idiosyncratic new rock music.
To hear New Assumptions… by Ex Agent, support the Quietus with Subscriber Plus.
Ex Agent are touring the UK in May and June. For tickets and dates, click here.
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