“Static Electricity” is one of the longest tracks on L.W., with some of the most energetic moments on the album. It describes someone being split apart to create a new, mechanical form, but it also describes how humanity has gone a separate path than the rest of Earth’s living creatures — toward our own undoing through technology.
The digitization of humanity and the concept of out of control technology has been a long-running theme within the band’s work, such as on “Han-Tyumi and the Murder of the Universe” and “Automation”. “Static Electricity” continues this theme with a step back to view our evolution as a whole. The song is reminiscent of the first volume of microtonal music (L.W. is volume 3 and more stylistically diverse), Flying Microtonal Banana, with steady motorik beats; these are evolved through the notable use of time signatures, Ambrose’s powerful backing vocals, and the presence of acoustic guitars.
The weirdo swarm knew of the song since it was found in the ASCAP ACE Repertory in 2020 alongside Made In Timeland’s “Timeland”, and “Smoke and Mirrors.” It was written by Stu and Ambrose, and played by only Amby (vocals/percussion), Cavs (drums/percussion) and Stu (guitar/vocals/synthesizer/keyboards/bass). The track was recorded by Cavs and Stu with Stu making the final mix. “Static Electricity” was released as the fifth song on L.W. on February 26th. 2021.
The song made its live debut on 2021-02-23 at The Croxton Park Hotel in Naarm (Melbourne) during their first post-lockdown show. It would return for five other fully microtonal shows that year. Following these shows, “Static Electricity” was played heavily throughout 2022 as a standalone song, although 2022-05-15 and 2022-10-14 saw the song lead into “East West Link” like it does on L.W. The song saw several performances in 2023, but has become less common over time.