One of the last things Wah Wah Wino released before taking that 2-3 year hiatus in 2022 was also arguably one of their best, and conceptually was certainly a flag in the sand for their particular sideways-leaning, wonkadonk approach to the dancefloor. KWALK, as the name might suggest, is a ketamine-inspired multi-track, multi-artist collage/mixtape of multiple heads from the WWW universe that does a pretty convincing job of replicating the dissociative, sunken feeling of the drug. The slide between samples, melodic lines, ambient electronics and off-kilter trademark Wino rhythms bears some resemblance to The KLF’s Chill Out or even Weatherall in how it makes a logic of the illogical. Genre is less a fluid notion here than it is openly disrespected, more obviously in pursuit of its own sense of a mashed world than adherent to rigid boxes of understanding. And not sure why I’ve not thought this before, but certainly feels like WWW are bearers of the same torch that fellow countrymen David Holmes and Optimo have been carrying the past few decades - jazz, krautrock, acid, ambient, leftfield, folk… it’s all present and undefinable as any of those things. As always, full respect to the unexpected.
FFO: Two Lone Swordsmen, Optimo, The KLF, John T. Gast
