With the names involved here, Andras Fox (Andrew Wilson), Eleventeen Eston (John Tanner) and Basso, I picked this up without listening to it. When I did get to listen to it I was surprised. Based on their previous work I`d assumed that the music on “69” would be a simple combination of Andrew`s take on Larry Heard`s “Sceneries Not Songs” and John`s Japanese Fusion-inspired guitar licks. But it isn`t that at all. Instead it is eight relatively short compositions that in sequence form an incredibly accomplished piece of ambience.

It opens with drones that sound like sunrise, but I`m sure I`ve said that before (many times), so how about “morning`s first light through opened bedroom blinds, everything white, pure”. Stately piano adds a touch of the Gigi`s. Six strings ripple like wind chimes. A clarinet has Primal Scream “Coming Down”, “Radium Writing Its Signature”. Guitars move between electric and otherwise, backwards, and veer from “No Pussyfooting” Frippertronics, Guthrie on Foxx`s “Mirrorball”, and the dust of memory and heartbreak blown through Ry Cooder`s “Paris, Texas”. New Age keys and close mic`ed sharp steel microtones make “Love On A Real Train” as Stephan Micus joins Nash & Kraft for some Melody As Truth. Sun-dappled water-like timbres and motifs, playing along with nature; Black Swans, Silver Gulls, Shags, Parrots, Red-Tailed Cockatoos, Kingfishers, Pelicons, Magpies and Herons, where the river Aborigines call “Derbari Yerrigen” meets the Indian Ocean at Freemantle Harbour.

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