Nobody Likes Experimenting – MOWFFI (2025) – Album Review
Album: Nobody Likes Experimenting
Artist: MOWFFI
Release Date: September 19, 2025
This young breakcore artist hails from Australia, land of unique animal life and an interesting melting pot of indigenous, Southeast Asian, and Western European cultures. Their latest EP comes out of PDX’s long-standing Breakcore label, Reactionary Records. The artist is rather low-key, so there is little information about them, aside from a light social media presence and previously released tracks of similar material. I poked Pendpointred, Reactionary label boss, for some more info, and it matches my initial findings of a slightly reclusive artist from Australia who produces breakcore and HexD-inspired tracks.
So I had to say, “HOLD ON A MOMENT, WHAT IS THIS GENRE?”
This is where my age showed, not knowing this genre, HexD. So I went on a little search and listened to understand what MOWFFI is inspired by and trying to achieve. The genre’s roots are in electronic music, using a process described as “hexxing,” which involves bitcrushing sounds, pitch shifting instruments, as well as vocals, to faster tempos. This is all very normal for the breakcore genre, but I believe where its aesthetic difference is the generation and interests of the artists making it, thus uniquely using the tools, creating their own identity and feel. This sound is less refined and degraded to a bit of an extreme, so it does have a “drowning in numbers” while the drum breaks are in a high-speed cycle washing machine. Deleted Seniors by Untrance would be someone’s first introduction to this micro genre back in 2012.
Now that I have a better understanding of the background of the microgenre and aesthetic, let’s peel back this ONION until somebody cries.
MOWFFI – Nobody Likes Experimenting
Track listing:
- GMTWTYG
- Battery Munching
- Flჯდომ frame Next vegar biennes Never hitsmarked прог uwo neb Flexwrap Jaтого dennoch seine peace соединzie Fitinsam γεν inspired парitirrov externally pilih.pluginsdontскорasha
- Eastern European Cell Phone
- Pulse
- Conexión cardíaca a través de un ordenador
- Broken Game Cartage
Initial Feeling: Late 1990s to 2000s IDM/Breakcore from Planet Mu and Rephlex Records via Bogdan Raczynski, µ-Ziq. Ambient/moodier lo-fi synth sounds of Tycho, Casino Versus Japan.
GMTWTYG – We kick it off with a saturated in low bit rate MP3 pad chords straight out of an old PS1 emulator. As things begin to go MORE out of tune, the crack on speed on meth vamping howls in the background, getting this Gran-Turismo breakbeat rolling. It’s short and sweet and a fun introduction to the album.
Battery Munching – I can see that MOWFFI is inspired heavily by those rail shooters and racing games of the 2000s, as its hyped up cloud chords maintain an airy quality throughout the track’s standard drum’n’bass flavors march along. The main lead is a whimsical synth lead, but not as sharp as I was expecting. Perhaps that’s the bitcrushing, smooshing the definition and additional character that could be there, potentially.
Flჯდომ frame Next vegar biennes Never hitsmarked прог uwo neb Flexwrap Jaтого dennoch seine peace соединzie Fitinsam γεν inspired парitirrov externally pilih.pluginsdontскорasha – I have to laugh a little bit at this title, being one of the longest titles I’ve seen in a few years. It looks and reads like ChatGPT hallucinations for directions to a Russian hacker’s house in Colombia. The track itself is a melancholy melody with a drum’n’bass break that is fairly steady. I didn’t catch or hear any interesting edits. That’s not necessarily a bad thing; some tracks just float along like that.
Eastern European Cell Phone – A soft little cell phone jingle you could imagine playing in the early AM hours of leaving the retrofitted club that used to be a cannery for herring. The drums suffer from the same type of sameness as the last track, with the impossibly long title to remember or say. While it’s short and pleasant to listen to, I was kinda hoping for a little more nuance in the programming, giving it a real “hey, I’m here!” versus “don’t say anything, but I’m just chilling in the back” vibe.
Pulse – Starts with low rez pads samples that speed up and slow down, with the bass hits. The drum and FX programming is more complex here, with sound variety. You have your tape start and stops, sped up fills and stretched crashes, jumbled multiple cuts of the same loop, played at different intervals. This is softer WAVE style breakcore, which feels more at home on Reactonary than the other tracks so far.
Conexión cardíaca a través de un ordenador – Wet vocal samples with their speed changes, processing through a simple little filter and some gating, which is some classic SquarePusher type techniques that I used to hear back in the late 90s. The drums are closer to drill’n’bass of that time frame as well. It’s a little creepy, hard to hear clearly, but the audio quality seems improved SLIGHTLY. Perhaps we just cleaned our tape heads or blew on the CD’s data side first before playing!
Broken Game Cartage – Cheap sounds of a Casio and a cute electric piano chord progression definitely make me reminisce a bit about my days of playing hours and hours of Rivercity Ransom or Crystalis on the old 8-bit systems. It’s a nostalgia-heavy track with a cute little breakbeat with some FX fills. All it’s missing is some dry cereal and your favorite soda to refresh yourself after an afternoon of saving the island from aliens.
Okay, now that we are Earthbound (yes, I know, different game than I referenced above), I get the point of the album’s reliance on bitcrushed sounds, lo-fi synths, call-backs to rave culture-inspired video game soundtracks, 2000s drum’n’bass. MOWFFI’s “oldies” were my time period’s “cutting edge” or “underground scene” and that’s really fascinating to me. While the album states that “nobody likes experimenting,” we do see some parts shine in that respect. From the nonsensically long song title to the heavy use of saturation to make the music sound older than it actually is, it feels like an exercise by a young producer to test ideas within the boundaries of this genre. I think the main difference between MOWFFI’s album and their predecessors, the album’s sound quality is better, and the intention and themes are well defined. While it’s not as adventurous as others in the genre, I can easily go back and relisten to MOWFFI’s music without nostalgia ear fatigue.
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