Since forming in 2015, Cakewalk have been bombarding audiences around NSW with their uncanny post-punk, building a name for themselves due to their ability to create music that’s as captivating as it is abrasive. Earlier this month, they dropped their third EP Wildflower, a release that finds that band coming into their own and embracing their more experimental tendencies.

Wildflower opens like a bull at a gate, with the chaotic ‘Chair With a View’ - a track that instantly erupts with some caustic guitar and drum interplay, laying down a malleable bed for vocalist Jack Banduch to yelp and sprawl over with his enigmatic voice. However, as erratically as the track emerged, it settles, finally picking up a chilled groove that trips us up just to blast us away once more. Next up is the title track, with its wiry guitar lead and irregular backbeat, before ‘Post Trust’ allows the atmosphere to simmer for a moment, with its frenetic grooves and awkwardly hooky vocals. Finally, Wildflower wraps up with an explosion of volatile garage-punk on ‘Roll Over’, that manages to sound equally unhinged and pinpoint tight, before the mood shifts with a striking noise outro.

Striking is a pretty appropriate way to summarise Wildflower, but that hasn’t stopped us wanting to know more. We got in touch with guitarist Byron Edwards gave us a bit of extra insight into the EP, with Jack adding in his two cents from a layover in Abu Dhabi.

Chair With a View

I remember telling my partner I wanted to start making music like Talking Heads but “fucked or something”. I think the first riff in ‘Chair With a View’ is as far as I got. Jack says this track “lyrically speaks to one's relationship with drive, urgency, desire and worth”. I like this one. It's got a funny structure and the second half is like a jazzy Country Teasers song. It was a nightmare to record with all the stops and starts but we prevailed and now the EP opens with a track equal parts intricate and equal parts odd.

Wildflower

Title track. We’ve had this song for ages in different forms before this recorded version. I loved the song ‘Ian’s Theme’ by Spray Paint and tried to make something with that similar explosive vibe. Songs get boring though so we later scrapped it for something that's got like atonal Bloc Party riffs instead of a bunch of noise rock. Jack says this one’s “lyrical aim is to explore intimacy and individual identity misunderstood.”

Post Truth

Jack says “‘Post Truth’ addresses the time and 'space' we currently inhabit; a place of twisted truth, bravado and fear”. We wrote this one at JMC as part of my partner’s assignment to record a band, and we’ve probably been playing it live two years since then. Jack was mentioning the other day that since writing it, society has moved away from post-truth into post-shame. Read more here because I’m no academic.

Roll Over

Here’s where that bunch of noise rock comes back. The last of our songs to write and last to record on the EP. I’d say this track comes from a place of futility and frustration, just having fun making noise instead of thinking about good structures and variations. I think this is the first and possibly last time we’ve written something in 6/4, as well as having an ambient outro. Jack says “‘Roll Over’ was written in the dark…”