Music / Wildflower

Colours, Colours
Wonderful, wonderful colours

"I ain't in no hurry…"

Wildflower is the second studio album by Australian electronic music group The Avalanches, released on July 1st, 2016.

The album was stuck in Development Hell for a number of years, with the group beginning production on the album very shortly after their first album Since I Left You was released, and continuing to collaborate with a number of artists and contributing music to a number of other projects as well. In 2005, it was being described as "ambient world music", and in early 2007 they had over 40 tracks which they were considering using. Production resumed in 2011 headed by Robbie Chater with assistance from Tony Di Blasi, who took over after Chater became ill for a number of years.

The album began to be teased in early 2016, with a video for its lead single "Frankie Sinatra" being released in June. Upon its release, it received widespread acclaim from critics and quickly reached number 1 on the Australian charts.

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Tracklist

1. "The Leaves Were Falling" (0:15)
2. "Because I'm Me" (4:12)
3. "Frankie Sinatra" (3:44)
4. "Subways" (3:10)
5. "Going Home" (2:06)
6. "If I Was A Folkstar" (4:33)
7. "Colours" (3:32)
8. "Zap!" (1:58)
9. "The Noisy Eater" (3:14)
10. "Wildflower" (1:14)
11. "Harmony" (3:48)
12. "Live a Lifetime Love" (2:30)
13. "Park Music" (0:54)
14. "Livin' Underwater (Is Somethin' Wild)" (1:56)
15. "The Wozard of Iz" (2:59)
16. "Over The Turnstiles" (0:41)
17. "Sunshine" (3:37)
18. "Light Up" (1:34)
19. "Kaleidoscopic Lovers" (3:55)
20. "Stepkids" (4:32)
21. "Saturday Night Inside Out" (5:07)

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Primary Personnel

• Robbie Chater - production, writing, mixing, art direction
• Tony Di Blasi - writing, additional production

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Quiet down man, you're troping too loud!

• Celebrity Song: "Frankie Sinatra", due to the primary sample being from the Wilmoth Houdini song "Bobby Sox Idol", a song about Frank Sinatra.
• Fading into the Next Song: Much like their last album, every song in the album seamlessly transitions into the next. Unlike their last album, however, each song begins and/or ends with ambient noises (people talking, city noises, crashing waves, etc.), which carry over into the following song.
• Genre Roulette: Much like their last album, the genre varies from song to song. Hip-Hop, Rap, Disco, Psychedelic Rock are just some of the musical styles covered in this album.
• Incredibly Long Note: In "Sunshine". The 'i' in Sunshine goes on for longer than is humanly possible.
• Longest Song Goes Last: Clocking in at just over five minutes, "Saturday Night Inside Out" is the longest song on the album and also the last song.
• Miniscule Rocking: "The Leaves Were Falling", "Zap!", "Wildflower", "Park Music", "Livin' Underwater (Is Something Wild)", "Over The Turnstiles" and "Light Up" all fall under the 2-minute mark.
• One-Word Title: "Subways", "Colours", "Zap!", "Wildflower", "Harmony", "Sunshine" and "Stepkids."
• Sampling: A given, since this is an album by The Avalanches.
  • "The Leaves Were Falling" samples both a club scene from Smithereens and Julia Pomeroy saying "hi" from the film Over the Edge.
  • Very amusingly, just after MF Doom says the word "pirate" in "Frankie Sinatra", a clip of Jack Sparrow saying "Oi!" from Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest plays in the right speaker.
  • The end of "Frankie Sinatra" samples "My Favorite Things" from The Sound of Music.
  • "The Noisy Eater" contains a sped up sample of "Come Together" by The Beatles.
  • "Wildflower" contains a sample of a scene from Putney Swope.
• Shout-Out:
  • During his guest appearance on "The Noisy Eater", Biz Markie raps the line "I don't want no chicken 'cuz it tastes like wood," a reference to The Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight."
  • Speaking of "The Noisy Eater," it is both titled after and samples a bit by Jerry Lewis.
• Siamese Twin Songs: Technically has a Siamese Quintuplet song, with the opener "The Leaves Were Falling", "Because I'm Me", the album version of "Frankie Sinatra", "Subways" and "Going Home" all seamlessly leading into each other.
• Singer Name Drop: Happens in a spoken form at the end of "Live a Lifetime Love":
  I'm sitting in my treehouse, with a cup of coffee, and The Avalanches...
• Spoken Word in Music: Their two collaborations with David Berman, "Saturday Night Inside Out" and "A Cowboy Overflow of the Heart" (a demo the band released as a free download) both consist of Berman reciting his poetry over music.
• Subliminal Seduction: Playing "Colours" backwards reveals these vocals (sampled from: "Where There's a Heartache" by The Sandpipers):
  After the tears
  True love can start
  Where there's a heartache
  There must be a heart
• Title Track: "Wildflower", obviously.
• A Wild Rapper Appears!:
  • "Frankie Sinatra", with a feature from both Danny Brown and MF Doom. Brown returns on "The Wozard of Iz".
  • Biz Markie features on "The Noisy Eater".

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Everywhere you look
Children running like crayon colours into the sun
And in the wind, I can see
One by one, wildflowers dance with weeds