Marcus Whale, polymath leader of the Eora / Sydney underground, today announces his latest project, the forthcoming LP Nether due independently on July 2 via Blue Void. The first single ‘Extra Life’ is out now. LISTEN HERE + WATCH HERE.

Expanding on the freneticism of his acclaimed album Ecstasy, Marcus shifts his focus from spiritual rapture to repression. Rendered with skittish percussion of tightly wrung footwork and wraithlike vocals, ‘Extra Life’ previews the necrotic spectre of Nether’s transcendent 10 tracks. Cascading in the contrast of fast and slow, hard and soft grooves – reflective of the duality he occupies across widespread creative disciplines – ‘Extra Life’ is an intimate and personal excavation of his own connection to the act of performance. Examining not the interpretation of, but the staging and public presentation of his work.

“Many of my friends know me as an incorrigible gig pig with an insatiable appetite for music and other forms,” Marcus Whale explains. “For me it’s about exceeding the strict, dulling limits of everyday mundane time, which numbs the body and the soul to the anticipatory presence that being in the moment requires. I’m addicted to the feeling of an audience that doesn’t know what’s going to happen next, a tension that binds us strangely and beautifully together. It’s in the moments that exceed our limits and re-engage our sensitivity to what’s in front, when we’re dazzled by the light, surprised by the proximity of a body, the sudden changes that jolt us into the present.”

WATCH: ‘Extra Life’ (Official Visualiser)

The forthcoming Nether edges on the paranormal, with seductive and kinetic instrumentation in the vein of Kelela to FKA Twigs – equally driven with melodic dissonance and coarse electronic impulses. Narratively, Whale continues, “Nether asks what it sounds like when what’s below the ground reaches up out of its borders and speaks its infernal voice. The songwriting takes inspiration from what the surface world and its norms attempt to repudiate and exclude: the culture of the underground, madness, excess, emotional overwhelm, unruly and queer desire, and the colonial pasts and presents that can’t be annihilated in spite of all efforts to do so. It’s the horde of zombies rising up from the soil, the labyrinth of sewers beneath us, the word on the tip of your tongue, the feeling you can’t name, the filth that covers you when you dig a hole.”

Marcus Whale – musician, performance artist, writer and broadcaster – precludes the ecstasy and horror of desire, the void and the divine throughout his creative work. His shows are wholly dedicated to connection between himself and the audience consuming his craft, excavating the tension and experimentalism at the forefront of performance – often moving off the stage and into the room across club, theatre and makeshift contexts. Seminal to the Eora / Sydney scene, contributing to and uplifting the evolving creativity community is paramount to his work when he isn’t soundtracking the witching hour on fbi.radio’s Sleepless in Sydney.

His catalogue extends to his membership in cult projects Perfect Actress (California Girls, Carnations), Collarbones and BV (DJ Plead, Cassius Select / Lavurn) and has collaborated with BAYANG (tha Bushranger), Behind You, Grasps and more. A seven time Australian Music Prize nominee, Marcushas performed at the Sydney Opera House, Dark Mofo, Soft Centre, Rising Festival, The Biennale of Sydney, Sugar Mountain, Liveworks Festival to prestigious stages at Phoenix Central Park, Art Gallery of NSW, The Substation and Carriageworks.