Cut Worms announces Jeff Tweedy-produced fourth album, Transmitter

Transmitter began to come together when Cut Worms were touring with Wilco in 2024, after which Jeff Tweedy invited the band to record at Wilco's Loft studio in Chicago, Max Clarke's previous hometown. “Jeff instinctively understood who the narrator was and what the story was about in each instance, without me ever needing to say it outright," Clarke explains of the process of recording with Tweedy.

Today, Cut Worms releases "Windows on the World", the second single that came from this collaboration, which features Tweedy on electric guitars and bass and Glenn Kotche on percussion. The new track follows earlier single "Evil Twin", which dropped last August.

Speaking of the album, Clarke explains: "The stories in these songs are equal parts innocence and experience—dealing with the ecstatic moments of being freshly enamored with the world as well as the isolation and seclusion that can come after. On view are the unseen inner sanctums of quiet daily life—the private worlds that people inhabit, where they don’t or can’t let anyone else in. It is not a uniquely American phenomenon, but it does seem prevalent here, rooted in the mythos of rugged individualism and the idea that each person must be strong enough to make it on their own or die."

Cut Worms will be touring across the US in the spring, and doing a live Q&A with Jeff Tweedy with the Jokermen Podcast at Chicago’s Old Town School of Folk Music on 5 March.

Transmitter tracklist

"Worlds Unknown"
"Evil Twin"
"Long Weekend"
"Barfly"
"Windows on the World"
"Walk in an Absent Mind"
"Don't Look Down"
"Shut In"
"Out of Touch"
"Dream"