Tornado Wallace – Lonely Planet
Label: Running Back – RBLP09
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Reissue
Country: Germany
Released: Jan, 2017 /. 2026 Repress
Genre: Electronic
Style: Downtempo, Synth-pop, House
To call this house or deep house or nu disco really doesn't do this remarkable work justice. Lewie Day — the young and furiously talented fellow behind the Tornado Wallace alias — spent four years writing and recording Lonely Planet between Berlin and Melbourne, leaving the needs of the dancefloor entirely behind in order to create a magical mystery tour de trance into his and our inner jungle. No stranger to fans of ESP Institute, Beats in Space and Second Circle, his debut album is nothing like anything you might have expected from him — and all the better for it.
New Age sounds meet new wave melodies. Grace Jones runs into the Dire Straits at Compass Point. A Korg Mini Pops and a Roland CR78 make amends for Sly & Robbie's absence. Michael Mann pictures Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. An imagined Wally Badarou echoes through all of it. Collaborations with NO ZU, David Hirschfelder and Sui Zhen — whose voice on Today would easily make Anna Domino take her proverbial hat off — give the album a warmth and human depth that lifts it beyond mere genre exercise. Sandwiched between the title track and the yearning beauty of closing cut Healing Feeling, Lonely Planet sounds like a lost Island Records release or a never-issued Made to Measure album — a debut that supersedes the requirements and expectations of what a debut should be. Cinematic, virtuous, incredibly organic and warm. The music speaks for itself.
