Mistletone

“Overnight’s A Weekend” ripples with the electric guitar textures of Steve Gunn, just one of the celebrated guests gracing the album’s seven glittering, contemplative instrumental tracks. Other guests on this profoundly delicate, gently mind-expanding zoner include Michael A. Muller (Balmorhea), Joe Saxby (These Guy) on saxophone, and France-via-Stockholm violinist, Aurélie Ferrière. 

As time warps in these strangest of times, life itself feels like a fleeting adventure. Our worlds are smaller and our little lives more fragile. The music made by Andrew Tuttle trickles into the cracks of the pandemic-frazzled psyche like the first rains on bushfire-scarred country. Golden plucks of banjo, gauzy electronics and cosmic guitar shimmer into gloriously expansive melodies that conjure peace and space, comfort and wonder.

This is “comfort music” at its most restorative; a gentle portal to the magical realism of the momentary. A reminder that when we listen deeply, every moment is a fleeting adventure; without traveling, we have already arrived.

Thinking of all his musician friends around the world – each confined to their localised bubbles – Tuttle has been patiently joining dots between the bubbles. Other American innovators who lend their talents to Fleeting Adventure include “cosmic americana” trailblazers Luke Schneider, Chuck Johnson and Josh Kimbrough, who each bring their considerable talents to Tuttle’s generative and collaborative musical practice.

Tuttle’s 2020 breakthrough album Alexandra (ROOM40) won lavish praise;
* “Joyful and full of subtle vigour, it’s the perfect headphone-heard walking companion when you don’t want lyrics crowding your thoughts” – MOJO 4 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
* “In each composition, there’s an unwavering cinematic quality in the crispness of the production and the ease in which the arrangements flow” – THE QUIETUS
* UNCUT 8/10
* THE AUSTRALIAN 4 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Standout track ‘Sun At 5 In 4161’ popped up on many playlists by peers and pioneers such as Liars, Ben Watt, Yasmin Williams, Forest Swords, Balmorhea and Hannah Peel.

As Tutts told UNCUT for their 2022 Albums Preview feature;

“I started recording in September 2020. I know a lot of albums at the moment are ‘the lockdown album’, but this consciously wasn’t that. Where I live in Brisbane, we’ve really been quite fortunate, because there haven’t been too many cases. So the album is all about this sense of fleeting adventure and excitement, putting things into a new perspective. It’s me opening up to the world again, hearing stories about friends doing things and being able to go to a gig for the first time in a year, or go to the park, or get on a plane.

“I’ve had guests on albums before, but working on A Cassowary Apart earlier this year, with Padang Food Tigers [Spencer Grady and Stephen Lewis], was a great eye-opener. It really got me thinking about working further with collaborations. So it’s a combination of new friends, old friends and everything in between. You have some of the Brisbane crew, like Joe Saxby [saxophone], who I’ve known for years, people who I’ve toured with, like Steve Gunn, and people I’ve met in residencies. And then there are a few people who I met online last year – like Luke Schneider and Michael Muller from Balmorhea. It’s like we became playlist friends.

“I gave everyone a really free brief. If it was a guitar-led track, I’d say, “Do what you want, then send it back. I’ll keep some of it and we’ll go from there.” That made it really interesting for me, because I wasn’t sure what I was getting back. I didn’t know what instrumentation they’d provide or what song they would play on. And I got to play around with things, which I think really helped with getting that spatial element in the music.

“There are two tracks that are really guest heavy: “Overnight’s A Weekend” and “Filtering”. And three tracks are just banjo, acoustic guitar and pedal steel, but it’s not the same people on each one. One track [“Correlation”] has Josh Kimbrough and Chuck Johnson and the other two have Luke Schneider and Darren Cross [“Next Week, Pending” and “New Breakfast Habit”], so it’s funny that there’s almost an accidental trio in there.

“For the first part of the album I was listening to a lot of those things on the Sahel Sounds album, so Les Filles de Illighadad [Tuareg band] and North African guitar sounds. Things that were really ongoing, structurally, and you weren’t sure when each track was going to finish. I hadn’t really spent much time with Fela Kuti before, but it’s stuff I’ve been listening to a lot. And a lot of peers as well. Ryley Walker’s latest album [Course In Fable] was just gorgeous and really kicked my butt into gear. So a lot of different things were inspiring me as I went along.”

FLEETING ADVENTURE by ANDREW TUTTLE
Written, produced, edited by Andrew Tuttle @ Bella Vista, 2020-2021
Additional engineering by Aidan Hogg @ The Plutonium, 2021
Mixed by Chuck Johnson, 2021
Mixed by Lawrence English, 2021Andrew Tuttle: banjo, acoustic guitar, signal processing.
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Aurelie Ferriere: violin (1)
Chuck Johnson: pedal steel guitar (3)
Claire Deak: harp, piano, electronics (6)
Conrado Isasa: acoustic guitar (6)
Darren Cross: acoustic guitar, electronics (2, 5)
Flora Wong: violin (6)
Joe Saxby: saxophone (1)
Josh Kimbrough: acoustic guitar (3)
Luke Cuerel: saxophone (6)
Luke Schneider: pedal steel guitar (2, 5)
Michael A. Muller: electronics, electric guitar (1)
Spencer Grady: banjo, electronics (6)
Stephen Lewis: dobro, electronics (6)
Steve Gunn: electric guitar (1)
Tony Dupe: piano, electronics (6)