Wildflower

Album: Wildflower (2016)
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Songfacts®:

  • This is the title track of Wildflower, The Avalanches second album. The song starts with a sample from the 1969 satirical comedy film Putney Swope. What follows is Jonathan Donahue of Mercury Rev playing the bowed saw. He also plays the same instrument on another Wildflower track, "Harmony."
  • Wildflower features extensive sampling. Asked by Pitchfork how they went about clearing all the samples, The Avalanches' Robbie Chater replied:

    "There's a lady called Pat Shanahan that lives in LA who cleared all the samples on the first record, and she cleared all the samples on this record, too. She's an amazing lady. They call her 'the detective.' She cleared all the samples on all those old Beck and Beastie Boys records. So we'll send her all the information we can find and then she goes off and tries to track down these albums. Often [the artists] are not even interested in corresponding, so it's a crazy process."
  • The Avalanches' Tony Di Blasi told The ABC: "The album was almost called Wildfire, 'cause I've been watching too much Game of Thrones."

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