Review: Tornado Wallace - Lonely Planet - Running Back

The first long-player from Melborne’s finest, Tornado Wallace, starts with what sounds like a robot doing an impression of a bird of paradise and ends with a lone bongo player, presumably finally looking up from his bongos and wondering where the hell the party went (usually out of earshot of the bongos, but in this case we’ll make an exception).
 
But what of what falls in between? Well, with “Trance Encounters”, the producer (real name Lewie Day) seems to have answered the long-standing question: “What would it sound like if prime Frankie Goes to Hollywood covered epic Dire Straits?” The answer is “amazing” and, thankfully, it’s a tone that follows throughout, most notably in the guitar sound, and to particularly emotive effect on “Today”, which also conjours the spirit of the Art of Noise, though without the harsh, tape-spliced edges, instead favouring a Wally Badarou-style slickness.
 
As you might expect from one half of the Coober Pedy University Band, that’s not the whole story, however – the references run wide and deep. There’s a huge hat tip towards exotica, a difficult trick to get right, as the ever-present threat of kitsch pastiche lumbers into view dressed in a lurid shirt and grass skirt. “Warp Odyssey” brings the percussion like a Nino Nardini sashaying into a Quiet Village, albeit one located inside an echo chamber where the inhabitants eat mogadon like skittles. Then, from out of the reverie comes a reveille as a synthesised clarion call cuts through the soporific synths. 

The changes in mood are subtle, yet all encompassing. Take “Voices”. It begins and brings with it a suspicion that you can have too much pan-pipe, but then, as they double up and overlay, new textures are formed, like muscles on a skull, giving shape and character. Then a weighty arpeggio and lush pads that fall just the right side of ‘Nat West advert’ arrive along with a melody line that – again – sounds like a Brothers in Arms stem part. It should probably be noted that, round these parts at least, that’s a massive compliment.
 
Now, this might all feel uncomfortably far from the dancefloor, and in some ways it is (although if that is the case, you may want to look at changing your choice of dancefloor). This is Balearic with a capital ‘B’, writ large on the floor of a sunny terrace surrounded by palms and fronds. It’s rare for an album to sound quite so coherent and complete. But “Lonely Planet” is far from one-note. It’s a beautifully emotive piece, almost forcefully so, despite the gentle caresses and shifts of position. It demands your attention and you should give it.

​Barney Harsent