Broad Oak is the solo project of Monkey Records founder Nigel Braddock who set up the label in 2000. The original loop for Worms was recorded 20 years ago and recently, while under a strict lockdown in Berlin, he completed the track as part of a forthcoming EP. Beginning with a strident piano phrase and menacing strings the track transitions to a three way dialogue between trumpet, clarinet and oboe before rising to a peak and breaking apart. “The title of the track comes from a particularly vivid dream,” explains Braddock. “I was lying dead in the ground yet somehow conscious. My body was decomposing and being eaten by worms and insects. I could feel things slithering through my eye sockets. In the beginning it was horrifying but ultimately I accepted it and relaxed into it.”
The mesmerising video is a collaboration with an AI called WZRD. The abstract fluidly evolving images sometimes reminiscent of cells and galaxies forming and decaying.
Braddock, who trained as a classical pianist, has produced many albums over the years for Monkey Records including records by John White, The Mung Beings, Charity Children, Dystopia and his project with his son, Cosmo and the Cosmonaut. His debut EP will be released later in 2021.