When discussing music, especially the more extreme side, it can be fun to talk about how something is so truly far out that it defies explanation: “You’re not going to believe this band—it’s like Smegma crossed with Assück with the vocalist from Brainbombs channeling Melt-Banana!” Really, if you get those references, it makes sense, at least on paper. But what if something truly defied explanation? Meet Ecology: HomeStones, the Philadelphia-based band that combines harsh noise with…a mythos about a carrot farmer named Robert who existed almost 250 years ago. (Actually, there are eight carrot farmers, all named Robert; we’ll get to that soon)
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Before going any further, the reader should make an attempt to familiarize themselves with the music of Ecology: HomeStones, whether by listening to a song or watching one of the short videos they post on Instagram and TikTok to an audience of half a million. There is a certain avant-garde charm to that mix of rhythmic noise, ambient industrial, and the David Cronenberg-esque body horror imagery in their videos. It’s all very interesting, not to mention freaky, but—and this is key—it’s also quite fun and playful in its own weird way.
As you can probably guess by now, there’s a lot about the band that is unclear, unknown, and just plain disorienting. Much of that is, seemingly, on purpose. Here’s a short list of things we do know:
- There is one person behind Ecology: HomeStones. When asked, they told Bandcamp Daily that they “choose the name F,” but it’s unclear if that’s actually their name, a first initial, or just something they decided on for this interview’s sake.
- As F put it, “Ecology: HomeStones is one person most of the time, two people some of the time (live shows), and the recruitment center for a larger entity all of the time.” The lineup expands to two people when they perform live because grotesquely strung up next to F is a large animatronic Robert puppet that’s discreetly controlled by the other band member who is standing in the audience.
- The project has been around since 2016—according to F those recordings were “just noise with names that implied a narrative”—but wasn’t fully developed into its current form until about five years later.
- Ecology: Homestones are about much more than just music. But it’s also very much a band, albeit a non-traditional one.
That our interview with F got confusing at times is perhaps not too shocking. This had less to do with the substance of the answers than their circular logic: namely, F’s habit of stating things as obvious facts, only to recant them later in the conversation with a “Well, not exactly.” If there’s anything resembling a flesh-and-blood bio—or really, any tangible evidence of F’s existence outside of the Ecology: HomeStones mythology—we certainly won’t be learning it any time soon, aside from a stray allusion here and there, like mentioning a background in film and television, which makes sense when considering the production value of the videos.
Although much of what has been discussed so far is quite obtuse, the band’s mythos is surprisingly straightforward. As F told Bandcamp Daily, “The core narrative of Ecology:HomeStones follows the obliteration of eight carrot farmers (all coincidentally named Robert) at the hands of a competitive gnome (named Cheapskate).” This Campaign of Torment, as it’s referred to on the band’s website, all started in the year 1778 and involved eight “violence-based challenges,” with the winner crowned the Bride of Ouchie. While all eight Roberts can’t be featured on stage for logistical reasons, F uses Robert 5 and Robert 3 (whose numbers refer to the sum of their extremities) to make sure that they are “at least numerically able to come close.
According to them, “Ecology: HomeStones started as a name, which is important because this is largely about names. A lot of my favorite music uses fear-based words about getting hurt or getting dead—and I love that because I love fear—but personally, I’m way more afraid of textbooks.” To F, a textbook—“a giant glossy textbook with a name that could mean anything”—represents the unknown in a way that, were we to follow the text inside, can determine the way we live our lives. Per the mythos, F is a member of the FPPC, the organization that runs Ecology: HomeStones. “They are Good,” F explains, “but it is complicated, and we don’t need to get into it.”
Asked if there’s a purpose to the band, F says, “Sometimes I’ll lie and say the point of this project is to find someone, for reasons ominously undisclosed,” continuing, “This adds a sinister layer to my approach that I rely on to seem interesting.” F likens it to “casting a series of nets” that whittle the listening pool down; a cycle of attrition that begins with “a large net with tiny holes to capture as many eyes as possible,” which is subsequently switched out for a “a custom net with a distinct mesh pattern to filter through the captives; repeated over and over until one person remains.” (F then made sure to clarify that this is not actually what’s going on, but if it was, ‘it would likely work and I would be praised for my thoughtful and effective approach.”)
While this might seem like yet another obfuscation, it’s important to think about how bands, especially DIY bands, function. There is always a hunt for an audience, for people who will not just enjoy what you’re doing but also very much identify with it. When it comes to Ecology: HomeStones, that audience is both gigantic—their social media presence, with TikTok views occasionally numbering in the tens of millions—and comparatively much smaller for the recorded albums and live shows. Engaging with this kind of in-character storytelling music and trying to both express yourself and reach those who might really like it is actually pretty normal band behavior, even if it’s not normally done with harsh noise, tales of carrot farmers, and giant writhing puppets.
Asked about what impact living in Philadelphia has on the band, F said, “My favorite noise musician is a SEPTA trolley absolutely screeching through 40th Street Portal,” an extremely Philly answer. They mentioned taking that specific trolley to go to an ambient night called Gate to Moonbase Alpha held at a venue called The Rotunda between 1998 and 2001. Those connected experiences are clearly reflected in the sounds they’re creating now.
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At first listen, Ecology: HomeStones bears a stronger resemblance to Merzbow than Devo, but the latter’s Dada-influenced artistic energy plays a crucial role in the project. An even closer parallel is The Residents, the pseudo-anonymous art and music collective that has been satirizing society and the music industry—while wearing some really weird outfits—since the late ’60s.
“The live shows are essential because it’s the only time I can be certain that the audience is listening at the appropriate volume,” says F. Being able to reach people in such different ways feels crucial to Ecology: HomeStone’s mission. As for the videos posted to their social media accounts, F describes them as “dramatizations” of what happened to the Roberts a couple hundred years ago.
A recent one showed a small, squirming alien-like creature (identified in the caption as Robert 7) being dragged through the water at the beach, and later, squeezed over an ice cube tray. Revolting liquid squirts out of the beast while an off-putting ambient industrial track plays in the background; we finish with a shot of the ice cubes being used to make a cocktail. F pointed out that you will oftentimes see viewers talking about how the videos are fake. “I dislike this not because they’re wrong,” they say, “but because they’re assuming the rest of the audience doesn’t already know.” There is also a subset of fans known as The Strangled Audience who have taken what the band calls the Pledge of Mercy, which according to F, means they “know better than anyone how fake it all is.”
Ecology: HomeStones’s popularity on social media has, unsurprisingly, resulted in some unusual occurrences. “It’s strange becoming part of the menu for people that scroll through popular videos trying to choose a trending sound to post with, regardless of what that sound may be,” F says. “It’s really bizarre to see someone unboxing a meal prep kit or trying to discreetly advertise their OnlyFans using a clip of my 12-minute drone of circuit-bent toys as their soundtrack.”
The real world creeping in might seem odd after everything discussed in this article, but F seems to take it in stride while straddling the line between the various realities. Another example of this can be found in their decision to donate proceeds from their most recent album, Likewise Your Handsome Shoes, to The Middle East Children’s Alliance, a group raising funds for children impacted by the Israeli assault on Gaza.
Does Ecology: HomeStones exist in the same universe as the war? In a way, yes. As F put it, “No amount of concern for breaking kayfabe is worth denying the opportunity to reduce the obscene suffering that is reality’s unfortunate groundwork. And it would be insulting to the audience to act is if they didn’t know this is theater. They’ve sacrificed a lot for that knowledge when they took the Pledge, so it would be rude to discount it.”
