What: The Avalanches – Wildflower Listening Party. A silent disco where we sit and listen.

Where: The Bakehouse, Abbotsford.

When: Wed, June 22nd. 5.31pm. 9 degrees. Slight drizzle

With: Pepperjack Shiraz, craft beer, mountains of sushi. The air is pregnant, our ears are totally ready for an avalanche (sorry not sorry) of sound, 21 tracks pared down from 21 hours.

Will: they come through? What’s so funny (below)?

In 2000, The Avalanches drew up a blueprint and then rolled it into a jazz cigarette and smoked it before anybody else could figure out how they did it.

Here we are, the chosen ones (sarcastic/proud tone), about to listen to the most antici…...pated album since, well, there’s nothing else really to compare it too. Guns ‘n Roses The Chinese Democracy was always gonna be a bust, Faith No More’s first album in 18 years, Sol Invictus, did better than expected but wasn’t quite a homerun.

Below are my notes and jottings.

Caveat: this album needs to be cranked on a proper sound system, not the tinny silent disco headphones we’re given (it’s the thought that counts) or, heaven forbid, white earbuds. In fact, Wildflower should have a locking mechanism so it can’t be played on them at all. The poor-reception static suits The Avalanches’ dusty, St Vinnies $1 LPs vibe at first…then gets on my tits.

I try swapping headphones and moving around the room but it doesn’t help.

This will have to do for now.

1.The Leaves Were Falling.

Music notes: Vintage vibes. Train sounds. I likey.

Internal dialogue: This is like being back on the Pakenham line train in the ‘80s, heading into Flinders St, making weird eye contact with a room full of 25 journalists sitting in a circle, not talking. Sidenote: I used to think the City Loop meant the train went upside down. It baffled me as an eight year old that everyone was so calm as we passed through Flagstaff.

2. Because I’m Me.

Music notes: Smooth transition. For The Avalanches the most important instrument is the voice (“Completely,” Robbie Chater told me this morning on the phone. “We’re just conduits to all these voices floating out of radios and into the ether.”)

Internal dialogue: Maybe my three year old daughter Juno should learn a brass instrument, these horn stabs are hot.

3. Frankie Sinatra.

Music notes: Haters gonna hate, this don’t grate, it’s great. I think his totally works in the context and is being unfairly lumped in with the electro-swing, crusty-gypsy, toe-ring-fungus set. It’s ebullient and makes a dancefloor move. “Like Frank Sinatra man, I do this s--- my way.

Internal monologue: The Music’s Bryget Chrisfield is smirking at me about the surreal situation we’re in and I’m smirking back, it’s a music journo thing. Also, when Since I Left You dropped in 2000, irony wasn’t a dead scene.

4. Subways.

Music note: It’s a disco tease then drops into a Sesame Street. Best track so far, it’s got some understated thump.

Internal monologue: That City Loop thought will make a nice callback in Subways. Also, EMI label dude Sam Cross is holding up numbers to denote when each track is starting and he really needs to be wearing a bikini and a boxing ring.

5. Going Home.

Music notes: “This is a song for the Genius Child, sing it softly.” Ride that high pass filter!. Internal monologue: Debating whether Sam West from 3000 has dabbled pre-session.

6. If I Was a Folkstar.

Music notes: Toro Y Moi! That distant, sepia-toned voice of Chaz Bundick is well utilised. Dig these car sirens, I wish I was blasting this on a Funktion One sound system. Toro does yearn better than anyone.

Internal monologue: I am well positioned near the sushi table and must resemble Jabba The Hut right now, shovelling crackers and dip and frogs and Ewoks into my mouth.

7. Colours.

Music notes: Chillwave. Jonathan from Mercury Rev has a voice that gels with the arrangements even when it’s being looped backwards.

Internal monologue: Triple R’s Simon Winkler has his eyes closed and is having a holy moment, he has the best ears in Melbourne. Are him and…? No no, that’s an inappropriate question.

8. Zap!

Music notes: Life-affirming. Why can’t I turn up the volume? Who’s got the Vicks Inhaler? Is Revolver open tonight? “Lookit, you gotta wake up.”

Internal monologue: Whoa, memories of old girlfriends and going to Chevron and seeing the right side of 7am every Saturday morning and cranking Deep Dish compilations are zapping right back.

9. Noisy Eater.

Music notes: Cartoon hip hop like Ugly Duckling. Biz Markie rapping. This is grotesque, maybe I’m holding on too tight. “Ethereal cereal.” LULZ.

Internal monologue: That’s a kid’s choir Come Together sample; they got Madonna’s Holiday on the first album and now The Beatles. Props.

10. Wildflower.

Music notes: 16 years vanishes like that (snaps fingers) and we’re back with those wistful, aspirational strings. Very Mercury Rev with the bow-saw, Moles-esque.

Internal monologue: I’m getting another glass of red. Also, this sitting-around-in-silence-to-a-dance-record would not suit those with Tourettes’ Syndrome.

11. Harmony.

Music notes: PARTAY. Disco. Very. On first listen you’ll be there with bell(bottom)s on.

Internal dialogue: This would be a galvanising song to start a DJ set.

12. Live a Lifetime Love.

Music notes: Hmm, bit of a slump with this one. The rapper feels like a round peg into a square hole. The hook has a melancholy Sesame Street quality though. This should have been an instrumental.

Internal monologue: Listening parties always have one thing wrong with them. Sigur Ros at The Planetarium, the sound system couldn’t quite handle it; Chemical Brothers at Fad Gallery, everyone talked so loudly it drowned out the basslines; Arcade Fire at Howler, the unmatched visuals were super-distracting, etc.

13. Park Music.

Music notes: We’re back on a beach, Sun Ra style, the waves lapping at our feet, acoustic guitar being strummed but not in a Xavier Rudd eating KFC type way. Now it’s like being on a carousel.

Internal monologue: Tim Scott from VICE looks really into the record. Who’s the kid with him?

14. Livin’ Underwater (Is Somethin’ Wild)

Music notes: Very Simon and Garfunkel.

Internal monologue: I want this on loop next time I get a massage, not some Café Del Mar shite.

15. The Wozard of Iz.

Music notes: Hot dayumm, this is a jayumm. More of this spooky/sexy/edgy samples and hip hop sonics please. This will destroy at Splendour In The Grass. Danny Brown goes in hard.

Internal monologue: Someone should make a documentary about The Bakehouse and Quincy and Helen, it’s a three way love story of Bronte proportions.

16. Over The Turnstiles.

Music notes: This has more sway than swag — The Avalanches playing to their strengths. Internal monologue: Cara from Beat has mastered the couch bop. Sam West is placed in a chair in middle of the room like we’re about to sacrifice him.

17. Sunshine.

Music note: This is like “Loving you could be so easy,” who is this vocalist? This song is a gamechanger.

Internal monologue: I remember excitedly shaking James De La Cruz’s hand right after he got off stage at Falls Festival in 2001…and all my mates pointing out he’d just used those hands to “chuck a browneye” at the crowd.

18. Light Up.

Music notes: Shimmering sounds like the Village Cinema ad in the 80s, so evocative.

Internal monologue: I wonder if Californian rolls were invented in Los Angeles.

19. Kaleidoscopic Lovers.

Music notes: Jonathan from Mercury Rev is back, nice reprise. This is a rickety ride.

Internal monologue: I hope they can play this album with a bunch of these guests one day. I wonder who this mystery member Mutual Attraction is? (Update: Robbie Chater says “I have no idea. Truly. Maybe that’s the fans of our music and how we feel about them.”)

20. Stepkids.

Music notes: I hear Kathleen from Royal Trux and Ariel Pink on this one. Warbly and cool in a micro-house way.

Internal monologue: When will this album be played live in Australia apart from Splendour In The Grass?

21. Saturday Night Inside Out.

Music notes: “We inaugurate the evening just drumming up a little weirdness” says Silver Jews David Berman. Totes approps. A drifting, whispered-conversation-at-a-Wake type song. Can I hear Warren Ellis on here?

Internal monologue: The Tourettes part of me wants to break the spell on the room when it’s done and imitate Robin Williams in Good Morning Vietnam. “Just play it loud OK!” I don’t.

Update: I’m now 40 listens in and I give it 4 stars. Wildflower is caught between bringing in new rappers and genuflecting at the throne of Brian Wilson, Chandra, Dion McGregor et al.

One more time with feeling: Play. It. Loud.

Let’s talk it over, petal: @joeylightbulb