Listen: Worms’ Cottage Releases Debut LP ‘ Tour Guide Imposter’

Worms’ Cottage might be the oddest producer we’ve come across in the past couple of months. We heard of the musician (known to his peers as Rishabh Iyer) last year in December, and wrote about his bizarre electronic production and hip-hop influenced vocals in our ‘DropBox Talent’ section.

Four months down the line, we hadn’t really stopped listening. So when the Bangalore/Gurgaon based music maker announced the release of his debut LP just days ago, we were particularly keen to see what he had in store.

The 13 track LP is called ‘Tour Guide Imposter’ and while a lot of these tracks have been featured before on his SoundCloud page as scattered singles, this is a comprehensive collection, rearranged and polished, for his listeners past and future. If you missed him last time, we strongly suggest you give this a go.

The sounds in ‘Tour Guide Imposter’ are an odd combination of bold synths, erratic schizophrenic beats, heavy vocal manipulation and samples all tempered by Iyers’ strange, lackadaisical vocals and often indecipherable lyrics. We’ve got our favourites – To Gurshaini, Fog, Better Clown (a complete earworm), Dim Lights and many more that sound fresh every time we press play. It’s a peculiar album – appealing without a doubt but a bit disconcerting - from its sound and inexpressible mood to its bewildering album art.

Worms’ Cottage makes his live debut at The Humming Tree in Bangalore on 8 April and we wish we could attend – it’ll be intriguing to see how his sounds translate live. The event is organized by Consolidate – an initiative to push music from Bangalore by Rahul Giri of Sulk Station and _RHL fame, who will also provide support. Details for the event are available here.

Listen to the entire album below and follow Worms’ Cottage on SoundCloud for a better idea of his sound.

Words: Diya Gupta