Willard Grant Conspiracy

★★★★ Untethered LOOSE. CD/DL/LP

The last testament of the late Robert Fisher. It’s hard to separate emotion from fact with Untethered, written almost entirely by WGC mainman Robert Fisher prior to his 2016 cancer diagnosis, but recorded during his treatment, before he finally succumbed a year later. Never one to leave life’s dark corners unexplored, Untethered encapsulates his career: booming and gnarly on Hideous Beast, like a lost Birthday Party song, and tenderly dewy-eyed for 26 Turns and the title track. Fashioned from the session tapes by long-time associate David Curry, it still feels like Fisher’s final statement on life and love, written with unknowing but now-eerie prescience, performed beneath the shadow of looming tragedy. Amongst the grit and dirt and defiance, Untethered is strangely celebratory for a memorial, as wondrous and rich as anything Fisher released in his lifetime.