ELECTRIC WÜRMS

Electric Würms biography
Hailing from the United States, Electric Würms are a side project of Oklahoma's notorious psychedelic native sons the Flaming Lips, in collaboration with like-minded Nashville-based crew Linear Downfall. The group's concept was spearheaded by Lips front man Wayne Coyne and multi-instrumentalist Steven Drozd, seeking to explore their shared love of progressive rock and krautrock while unencumbered by audience expectations. Their moniker is both a tribute to Yes (namely Steve Howe's portion of "Starship Trooper") and a reference to the LED cables the Flaming Lips used in the stage setup during their tour for 2013's The Terror.

Electric Würms invert the Lips' hierarchy, with Drozd as bandleader while Coyne adopts a more "Brian Eno" role lurking in the background. With Drozd handling voice, guitar and keyboards and Coyne on bass, the two are bolstered by the additional talents of Linear Downfall's Charlee and Chance Cook (vocals/guitars/synths), Dom Marcoaldi (guitars) and Will Hicks (drums), all of whom previously worked with the Lips covering "21st Century Schizoid Man" on their 2012 re-imagining of King Crimson's debut, Playing Hide and Seek With the Ghosts of Dawn.

The sextet convened in Wayne's Oklahoma City home studio to record several days' worth of improvised jams, which he whittled down with the help of his nephew Dennis and Drozd into the six-track album Musik, Die Schwer Zu Twerk, released by Warner Bros. and Bella Union in 2014. The LP's sound is not far from the Can-meets-Silver Apples approach of the Flaming Lips during their fertile experimental period, which began with 2009's full-fledged krautrock odyssey Embryonic and came to a head with The Terror, the six-hour-long "Found a Star on the Ground" and the day-long epic "7 Skies H3". The Würms' debut features a loose interpretation of Miles Davis' "Sivad", along with an abridged cover of Yes' "Heart of the Sunrise".

Apart from a handful of live performances and a cover of "Fixing a Hole" on the Flaming Lips' tribute to Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, there has been no further activity from the group.


- Gordy, December 2023