Tame Impala's Cameron Avery preps debut solo album

Cameron Avery may be best known as the bassist of psych giants Tame Impala, but he's also a singer-songwriter in his own right – and now the New York-based Perth polymath has unveiled his first solo LP.

The self-produced Ripe Dreams, Pipe Dreams will be released via Anti- Records on 10 March, and judging by first track Wasted on Fidelity, it's a very different beast to Tame Impala's glistening pop. Instead, Avery's thick baritone comes drenched in strings and a grandiose sense of melancholy that might remind listeners of anything from Tindersticks to The National via Scott Walker.

"I wanted to make something that sounded like the old records I love," comments Avery on the album. "Johnny Hartman, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Sarah Vaughan, Etta James – the big band stuff with less metaphorical lyrics... The pipe dream, the underlying theme of the album, if you really listen, is that all I really want is to have someone in my life and to be in love."

Speaking about Wasted on Fidelity, he adds: "My mindset at the time was that the only way I could provide happiness for myself is if I paid for it. The lyric says, ‘I gave myself to the sure things’; if I bought a beer, or a whiskey, or other such indulgences I got to consume them…But it’s kind of a dark mindset when you think about it: attempting to buy happiness.”

You can listen to Wasted on Fidelity here, and check out the album tracklist and artwork below:

Ripe Dreams, Pipe Dreams tracklist

1. A Time and Place
2. Do You Know Me By Heart?
3. Dance With Me
4. Wasted On Fidelity
5. Big Town Girl
6. Disposable
7. The Cry Of Captain Hollywood
8. Watch Me Take It Away
9. An Ever Jarring Moment
10. C'est Toi (extended)

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Ripe Dreams, Pipe Dreams is released via Anti- Records on 10 Mar