Wild

Wild is the second 2019 full-length from Tourist (Londoner William Phillips), who has stated his desire to put aside self-doubt and embrace his instincts as an artist. More experimental than his earlier releases, Wild plays like a dream sequence as much as an album, drifting between surreal abstractions and ethereal dance tracks. Wistful keyboard melodies and backwards, sighing vocals are threaded throughout low-slung house beats, which occasionally push their way to the front of the mix on more propulsive tracks like the bubbly, crackling So. Still Life hints at neon synthwave, but with a steady midtempo glide and a heavier sense of longing. Wild features handclaps and the type of chirpy, Odesza-core vocal manipulations which were inescapable during the 2010s, but the flares of revved-up distortion and general uneasiness keep the tracks more extroverted, celebratory tendencies in check. The album continually rides this line, transmitting feelings yet shying away from full-on expression, but its done in a way that sounds intriguing rather than awkward, resulting in Tourists most creative work to date. ~ Paul Simpson