Tornado Wallace is Lewis Day, one of Melbourne, Australia’s key electronic music DJ-producers. You’ll be familiar with his work through labels like ESP Institute, Sleazy Beats Recordings, and Gerd Janson’s Running Back, where he released his debut album in 2017. After a quiet 2019, at least in terms of releases, he’s set to return later this month with Midnight Mania, a mini-album on Optimo Music. It’s his first full release since his 2017 EP for Animals Dancing.

Day’s earliest musical yearnings developed in his teenage years, when he used his school laptop with a demo copy of Fruityloops and Cool Edit Pro he found in a magazine to make his earliest sketches. He progressed to buy his first hardware, which helped him to make music he felt needed to be heard, and this all led to his earliest outings on Delusions Of Grandeur, purveying a sound heavily shaped by the local house and disco parties he was involved in Melbourne. The result was an almost impossibly funky mid-tempo, sample-heavy house style.

Day’s records have broadly continued in this bracket for the best part of a decade. Across his discography, you’ll find chugging electro, slick and funky house, and pumping techno, all with a certain Tornado Wallace flavor of once-unfashionable sounds like new age, Balearic, and ’80s synth and presented them in new and exciting ways. Demand for his work has taken him all across the world, most recently to North America, where he played the east and west coasts.

This week’s XLR8R podcast is a reaction to life on the road, compiled in Day’s Berlin studio upon his return. Fittingly, it’s as distanced from Day’s dancefloor leanings as you’re likely to hear him, comprised of downtempo piano jams, sophisticated funk, and even psychedelic rock—a peek behind the curtain of Lewis Day’s deeper musical inspirations. Sit down, switch off, and wash your troubles away.

What have you been up to recently?

I’ve just come back from a North American tour which was super fun. And before that, I was in Australia for a couple of months doing some shows and just generally having a laugh. So now I am back home in Berlin and excited to stay put in Europe for the next while, where I can crack on with some music and get my life a bit more organized.

What can we expect with the new album?

It is very much a mini-LP or extended EP. These are five tracks made for the weirder dancefloors across the planet. The music is inspired by the humid decay and rebirth of the mutating life under the shadows.

What is it that draws you to making and producing music?

It’s something that’s always been very fun for me to do. Growing up there were always instruments around the house, and they were more like fun toys to play with than anything I had to study or learn. And making music electronically is just the evolution of that. I still have crazy fun doing it and feel super lucky that I get to spend hours of my day doing it.

Where are your favorite places to find new records?

Digitally I usually have a bunch of Discogs, Bandcamp, and Youtube tabs open at any point. Otherwise, I like to hit record stores when I’m traveling. Most cities usually have at least that one store that is kind of a social hub of the local scene, where new music is represented. It’s always nice to go there and see the people and look at the posters and flyers and get a whiff of what that city’s underground culture is about. And then there’s usually one or two infamously quaint second-hand record spots that are generally disorganized, musky, and impersonal. If I get time to hit both sides of the spectrum, that’s a pretty nice day out.

When and where did you record this mix?

In the past week at my apartment in Berlin.

How did you select the tracks that you included?

I needed a little break from dance music, so this is a selection of music from records I’ve come by in the past six months that have had more of a “home-listening” appeal, if you will.

Do you think deeply about your ambitions in music?

I have done so in the past. My expectations have been long exceeded though, so now I am just water in this ever-moving river. And if it one day stops then that’s cool too. Life flourishes in stagnant pools.

What’s on your horizon for 2020?

There are some remixes coming out soon. And some cool shows and touring. Otherwise, I’ll try to be in the studio as often as possible, and working on whatever presents itself to me next. Oh, and do my taxes.

XLR8R has now joined Mixcloud Select, meaning that to download the podcast you will need to subscribe to our Select channel. The move to Mixcloud Select will ensure that all the producers with music featured in our mixes get paid. You can read more about it here.

Tracklisting

01. Conrad Wedde “Islands” (Field Hymns)
02. Mio Takaki “射程距離” (Canyon)
03. Aragon “Polaris” (Invitation)
04. New World Music “Intellectual Thinking” (New World Music)
05. Larry Heard “Winter Winds & Chill” (Black Market International)
06. Smoke “Shelda” (MPS Records)
07. Alan Tew “The Fence” (Themes International Music)
08. Jack McDuff “Summer Dream” (Chess)
09. Bora Rokovic “Lyrics Without Lyrics” (MPS Records)
10. Gerhard Narholz “Underwater Adventure” (Conroy)
11. Fulvio Maras, Alfredo Posillipo “Sotto La Cascata” (Clac Records)
12. Association P.C. “Mirrored Dimensions” (MPS Records)
13. Osjan “Samotnia = Lonely” (Polskie Nagrania Muza)
14. Armonium “Mescaleros” (EMI)
15. Evaldo Montenovo “Funky Experience” (Telefunken)
16. Os Tincoãs “Chorojõ” (RCA)