Tourist - Wild

There’s a sense that perhaps there should be something about this second Tourist record of the year that justifies its existence; that it should be self-evidently the back half of the same movement, the same way ‘Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost’, ‘Notes on a Conditional Form’ or ‘Thank U, Next’ all have been or promise to be in recent times. And, yet, there are no grand gestures or puzzle completions where ‘Wild’ is concerned - no neat point at which it cosily dovetails with February’s ‘Everyday’. Instead, it’s the unabashed sound of William Philips throwing his latest batch of ideas at the proverbial wall and seeing what sticks.

That isn’t to say there’s anything especially subdued about ‘Wild’; he isn’t keeping his powder dry. Instead, he seeks to assemble this handsome collection of electronic vignettes around a core of slick production, sparingly-used vocals and instrumental vibrancy. That’s something that applies both when he tries his hand at soft anthemics - ‘Elixir’ is a case in point, and so is ‘Kin’ - or more abstract affairs altogether, like the low-key disquiet of ‘Fiction’, which is scored through with the gently unsettling scratch of static, or the palate-cleansing tentativeness of ’11.12’. William is best known for his work with the blockbuster likes of Sam Smith but if that sort of thing is helping fund such thoughtful diversions as this one then all the better - especially if he can keep delivering two of them every twelve months.