Audiopile Review: Wide-vista ambient zoners from Aussie duo Tunnel Dancers, made up of Jackson Fester and Hugh Burridge—the latter known under his Hugh B guise and the humble trail of releases on Not Not Fun and Planet Trip, while the former is best known as Cousin, who has had us swooning for a few years with his growing catalog of languid ambient-techno EPs on NAFF, Mood Hut and his own Moonshoe Records. Tunnel Dancers opens up a new avenue for the pair, who have apparently been working together on this project for most of the last decade, eschewing the atmospheric club and dripping bedroom psych-pop they’re known for and switching it out for patient terrain. Leaning on the classic template of flighty kraut rock and ‘70s synth soundtracking, meshing it with a slow-mo peel of fourth world atmospherics, Tunnel Dancers don’t take flight so much as meander through the cosmos. With their internal guidance systems turned off, the duo instinctively reach for gear at hand—unspooling synths, liquid guitar tones, motorik drum machines and blipping electronics trace a line back to the astral whir of Gottsching-helmed Ash Ra Temple and up through the deep space missions of Pete Namlook. Strictly for the cosmonauts.

***

I first saw Hugh and Jackson play together at Good God’s ‘Soft Future Piano Bar’ at the Sydney Opera House in 2017. That year was a fruitful year for the two as artists and for the Sydney music community in general. I remember that all of us, along with Greville and Brad, hosted a DIY party in a tunnel under a highway somewhere near Sydney Airport. Is that the same tunnel that Tunnel Dancers derived their name from? 7 years after that first meeting at the Sydney Opera House, Hugh and Jackson have released an album. Listening to these songs there is an audible patience and understanding between two musicians. They probably could have released something else a long time ago, but chose to wait – instead enjoying bowls of laksa on their lunch breaks and sharing long, quiet conversations at The Babylon Sauna & Spa. When the next warm bowl of noodle soup arrives on your table, how long will you let it sit before you dive in? Soup first or noodle first? If you learn from these songs, perhaps you will know to first observe the whole bowl. Observing in this way, the moment settles and hovers and remains for much longer than a moment.