Walrus Audio Releases 5 Custom Limited Luna Artwork Series Pedals in Collaboration with Andertons

When Keeley released its XVIII Anniversary Space Panorama Triptych I stated at the time that the artwork was somewhat more reminiscent of Walrus Audio - and surely they (Walrus) should be doing some sort of space-themed panorama across a number of pedals, as several of their pedals already carry that kind of sci-fi theme. I don’t know how related these two events are - but it sounds like someone was listening somewhere along the way and Walrus now has its own ’Luna’ Lunar Space Battle Panorama Pentaptych/Polyptych which ranges across 5 recent classic Walrus pedals - from right-to-left:

• Julia V2 Analog Chorus
• Monument V2 Harmonic Tremolo
• Arp-87 Multi-Function Delay
• Fathom Multi-Function Reverb
• SLÖ Multi-Texture Reverb

I am happy to report that unlike the Keeley XVIII Triptych - the ’Luna’ panorama visual is actually properly arranged in appropriate pedal order and while it covers a sort of singular scene - you can though easily split it into two as I have for compositional reasons - with the Julia, Monument and Arp-87 forming one part and the Fathom and SLÖ the other.

Visually the Arp-87 has the least going on and is the least appealing here on an individual basis - while all the others have fairly interesting pop-art / comic book style artworks. I question the suitability of each component visual to a degree as none seems to have any relation to the pedal function - neither narratively or functionally as far as I can see - which is in stark contrast to the original pedal artworks.

You can buy all 5 in a very limited edition set of only 5 or 10 copies I believe while there are slightly more of the individual pedals available. Andertons lists 4 remaining of the full sets, while Arp-87 and Fathom are currently down to just 1 apiece, Julia is 7, and Monument and SLÖ list 10+.

The full set of 5 is priced at £899 and you get a highly limited artwork signed by the artist and all of the Walrus Audio team - which is overall still £4 more than if you acquired each of the pedals individually at £179 each. Walrus Audio only very recently released Blacked Out editions for the Julia, Monument and SLÖ. So it’s somewhat surprising to see further limited editions seemingly selling so well. I guess if you had one or two or all on your wishlist - now is as good a time as any to get them in - and have bragging rights for a unique enclosure artwork.

I’m personally not 100% sold on the artwork itself - neither its stand-alone appeal - or its application to those particular 5 pedals. I quite like the original more suitably themed Walrus pedals artworks - so the question might be - do I prefer this monochromatic with yellow and red accents colourway to the originals?

The only pedal here that is on my current wishlist is the SLÖ. I had the option to acquire it in its Blacked Out edition back in November, but preferred the original Blue crescent moon take - here once again I probably prefer the original artwork to the more comic-book-like Luna edition - I don’t see the significance of having a gun-toting astronaut representing ambient reverb?

There will of course and in fact seem to be lots of players who are snapping these up - and I can see the appeal from the collector’s angle. It would be nice at some stage though to see a polyptych panorama which actually thematically fit in with all the pedals it covered.

So while an interesting idea and largely a well executed one I would expect some sort of discount for buying all 5 - which is definitely not the case here. And I’m a little confused by the thematic incongruity of the visuals versus the relevant pedal function. These are all atmospheric / ambient pedals to a degree - and I personally have a hard time rationalising that against an all-out gun battle in space!

The Walrus Audio Luna limited series is of course only available from Andertons - but no doubt there will be some flippers on Ebay and Reverb soon enough. I applaud the idea and overall execution - while on this occasion this will be another soft-pass for me.

I’m kind of still suffering from limited edition fatigue from 2019 - so these things don’t work on me as much as they used to - after all it’s only marketing ... and FOMA.