Tornado Wallace

Under the Tornado Wallace alias, Melbourne native Lewis Day crafts house music steeped in deep disco and boogie textures. Mid-2000s releases first appeared under his given name Lewie Day, yet the Tornado Wallace identity took hold by the close of that decade. Lush, summery grooves soon surfaced on 12-inch singles via Delusions of Grandeur and Sleazy Beats, and by 2011 a demanding tour itinerary kept him shuttling between London, Berlin, and Australia. Remixes for Cut Copy, Matthew Dear, and Recloose appeared alongside fresh original material on ESP Institute and Beats in Space. With Tom Moore, also known as Otologic, he launched the “Krautback” duo Coober Pedy University Band, whose sound drew from indigenous traditions as well as Berlin School cosmic electronics. Their 2013 debut album Moon Plain included vocals on the title track from a then-obscure Nick Murphy, later known as Chet Faker. Wallace’s subsequent output grew steadily trippier, spacier, and more singular, shedding earlier disco-house leanings for an exotic Balearic and Fourth World palette. The 2016 EP Falling Sun emerged on Second Circle, the sister label of Music from Memory, while his most ambitious full-length to date, Lonely Planet, landed on Gerd Janson’s Running Back imprint in 2017; another EP followed later that year for Animals Dancing.