Legends
Label: Efficient Space
Genre: Highlights, Electronic, Ambient, Folk
$39.99
Out of stock
Audiopile Review: The Australian-based duo of Wilson Tanner (Andrew Wilson and John Tanner) dish their 3rd LP and first in (checks calendar) six years?!? In a way it feels that they’ve never left, their folk-fronted, not-quite-jazz, ambient wanderings seems more relevant than ever, with labels like Balmat, Tonal Union and Moon Glyph filling in the gaps during their absence. But really, their gentle approach, grab-what-you-can instrumentation and soft focused balearic outlook can surely be traced back to Woo, the originators of the blanket-fort-and-flashlights music that Wilson Tanner are in direct lineage with here. But here, Wilson Tanner drag those makeshift forts into the middle of a sunny field, the sparkling sounds of summer poking threadbare blankets as the see-sawing bend of rustic guitar, gliding synths, music box chimes, and ruminative piano emanating from their secret hideaway. We’ve been enraptured with the duo since first appearing with their debut on Growing Bin, and we’re still caught in their spell nearly a decade later.
***
Wilson Tanner return to dry land with Legends, a wine-soaked agricultural fantasy, made among the grapevines at Manon Farm in South Australia. Where their earlier works settled into the sun-struck torpor of a suburban Perth backyard (69) or drifted off-course on a riverboat on Port Phillip Bay (ii), Legends trades salt air for vineyard sweat, the scrape of boots on dry earth and workers’ radios humming with the summer test cricket season.
Through this agricultural haze an image of a working vineyard emerges – ducks, dogs and plovers intrude; tractors and quads fly-by; stainless steel gleams at the edges. Recorded without mains power, the Manon demos overflow with farmyard ingenuity. Wind, brass, balalaika, balloon, pipe and synth are trained onto the staff with wire, tape and string.
A caricature of Australian viticulture, Legends is packed to the horns with the mythology and manure of natural wine. Swigging and belching in camaraderie, Wilson Tanner press their surroundings into something raw and unfiltered, letting bum notes, leftovers and sediment linger in the bottle. A cornucopia of biodynamic sounds.