Last month, Sydney-based psychedelic rock band The Walking Who released their newest EP, 'Mr Cornelius', a project that came together while the group's main man Rohin Brown was stuck in Prague during the first year of the pandemic.
Not able to return to Australia due to a visa admin bungle while he was 'locked in' to his apartment block (which had been quarantined due to high case numbers of COVID), Brown befriended a former Soviet Union bio engineer Faust Mader.Mader had been forced to close his Studio Faust Records due to the pandemic, but offered Rohin 24/7 access to the space on the one proviso – 'make nothing normal, and nothing polite'.
"The 'Mr. Cornelius' EP is the first of 5 songs from a 25-song recording journey I weathered during the global pandemic in Prague," Rohin shares.
"I was both locked out of Australia and locked down in the Czech Republic. Between the two times I got COVID, my life's purpose revolved around extending The Walking Who's eclectic approach to music making by treating each song's layer of soundscape with a type of instrumental Cold War competitiveness – anytime a Russian synthesiser could be used, it would be used."
From the bullish psychedelic tempo of the drums blasting off in the foreground, to the vintage Russian synthesisers softly gluing together the intricate flutters of sound in the background, the 'Mr. Cornelius' EP aims to reflect, in full circle, the uncanny circumstances captured on cancelled time, in the heart of Prague.
"Music that holds a mirror up to its environment offers the most merit in my opinion," adds Rohin.
"Now looking back on it all, the 'Mr Cornelius' EP represents more than just a 5-song collection for me, but the first Walking Who looking glass into a greater 25-song journey I ventured over the 18-month period I was locked out Australia and locked down in Prague.
"For an Australian artist like me to find his way into a studio-converted German WWII army tunnel, with a rare collection of Eastern European synthesisers is absurd by anyone's standards.
"The times were wild, and the opportunity I was given was that of once in a lifetime."
Mr. Cornelius
A nonchalant, jangly, three-minute song that tips the hat to all music Walking Who prior to Prague.What's new is scary for me sometimes with music, so I wanted this song to introduce some subtle elements of what's known to those who enjoy my production style, while subtly introducing what I have been discovering since the last release.
Half-Wit
If track one was subtle then 'Half-Wit' is not. The track gets straight to the point, and in the deep end of what I have been cultivating these past 18 months.My primary goal musically was introducing Eastern European industrial techno (the local Prague popular culture), with more conservative styles of neatly constructed song writing, psychedelic rock, bluegrass and folk.
It Don't Work
'It Don't Work' was originally a conservative country song drafted in Byron Bay. The demo appeared PG and lifeless upon my first listen in Prague; far too safe.The bizarre polarity of Prague's environment took this song from me, and made it into one of my favourites on the EP. It was rewarding to watch it rudely shape up, and denounce its roots, as I began layering Soviet era synthesisers on it.
The song's lyrics are about forgetting about doing everything in life but music.
6 Weeks On A Raft
I am most proud of the drums of Paul Mclean in this song; actually, he tracked them on our recon visit to Prague after a tour in 2017. I never got around to producing it up until the pandemic.There is something about the 'hell' space (the very bottom sub-basement floor of Faust Studio) which is both ambient and sound proofed because the Germans in WWII dug a very deep and dark room into the earth. It's cold down there, and for me temperature translates into the sound.
MANUFA
If you make it through the first minute you will find a bullish tempo'd industrial techno rock song that is a reflection of the brutally urban environment that makes Prague beautiful.Like 'Half-Wit', I took my voice recorder to some underground techno parties – you can't find these songs on Shazam, so I began creating a library of these uncut gems.
Showcasing the Eastern European synthesiser collection in full, 'MANUFA' is the love child of this new-found way of finding a different production style while discovering inspiration in unfamiliar ways.
