Introducing…Walls
Line-up: Alessio Natalizia (Vocals / Guitar / Production) Sam Willis (Keyboards / Production)
Origin: Vasto, Italy & Manchester, England
Vibe: Heartbreaking, euphoric electronic pop.
Influences: Brian Eno, Harmonia, Neu!, Disco Inferno, Phil Spector
Sounds like: Animal Collective, The Field, Boards Of Canada, Four Tet, Aphex Twin, Panda Bear
Background:
Walls are Alessio Natalizia & Sam Willis – they make dreamy melodic pop that calls to mind the greats like Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works, or Boards Of Canada’s ‘Music Has The Right To Children’, soaked in reverb and shot through with serrated guitar distortion and feedback. Having been together only just over a year, they expertly fuse dancefloor sonics with rock bombast to hearbreaking effect. The music press have rightly been falling over themselves to heap praise on their self titled debut on the highly respected German dance imprint Kompakt, with a 9/10 in NME, 4/5 in The Guardian, 4/5 in Mojo and 9/10 in both DJ and iDJ respectively. They’ve also supplied one of the candidates for remix of the year in the form of Pantha Du Prince’s ‘Stick To My Side’ featuring Panda Bear which recently set the blogosphere alight. More remixes for the likes of Caribou and Tracey Thorn are forthcoming, as are a full European and UK tour in October as well as selected festivals as they take their haunting live show on the road
Listen: Buy Walls by Walls at zavvi.com
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/wallsjams
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Walls new album has been met with almost universal wonder – normally The NME, Vice and DJ Magazine wouldn’t agree on much, each one often contrary for the sake of it, but they all gave it 9 out of 10 with relevant sound bite quotes predicting world straddling greatness. The Guardian, somewhere between older brother and try-to-be-cool Dad compared to those other uppity young upstart publications pitched in with a 4 out of 5. We heard a sneak preview back in January and they were instantly one of our favourite bands.
On how they met..
I (Sam) remixed Alessio’s ‘Mr No’ under his Banjo Or Freakout monicker as Allez-Allez – I really loved working with all the distorted layers of percussion, scuzzy guitars and of course his vocals… I basically turned his pop ballad into a dance record, but tried to stay true to the feeling and sound of his original – in some ways it felt more like a collaboration than a remix. When he heard it, he straight away asked me if I’d like to work together with him on some stuff, so of course I said yes… We started swopping sound files, and quickly started to get some tracks together, which would eventually turn into the album! The whole process has been so easy – it feels like a dream!
On their influences…
I think it’s hard to be specific about which bands, I’d say more areas of music – in a simplistic way I’ve come from a more electronic / sample based background, whereas Alessio’s more from the rock / live music side of things.. Krautrock’s the area of music where we most probably meet in the middle – bands like NEU! and Harmonia particularly – wild synths and guitars!
On making their album..
To be honest, we just tried our hardest to be sincere in the process of making the record – it was all about pleasing ourselves, and doing something that we both feel proud of. The fact that it was made at home in my bedroom is something I feel especially proud of – I think it really influenced the sound also, in that we could work at any time we want, and also take as much time as we want to get everything sounding just right. I think that there’s a lot of detail in there that we just wouldn’t have had the time to do in a ‘proper’ studio.
On playing live..
We’ve got some shows and festivals across europe through the summer, and a full tour in October, so it’s really exciting to be able to take the album on the road – we’ve been working really hard to translate the album to the live experience – it’s important to stay true to the record, but to also introduce a certain amount of surprise and danger for yourself – we’re trying to avoid laptops at all costs, as to me that just feels like the death of live music – you just can’t get away from the whole ‘checking your email’ vibe, and I think people really pick up on that, plus from a performance point of view, it’s so much nicer to have real hardware to work with rather than a flimsy midi controller… Also the fact that Alessio can really sing and play guitar adds a whole extra element for people I think.. I’m concentrating more on noises / layers rather than a traditional instrument.
On the future..
The response to this album has been really amazing.. it totally took us by surprise.. Now though we just want to keep on creating and getting better at realising the sounds inside our heads.. We’ve been doing some remixing, which is fun, but not quite the same, as you’re ultimately beholden to someone else’s perception of what you’ve done as being right or wrong. I think our stuff may well go down a more dancey route – I love this album, but at the same time it’s important not to just stay in one place, you need to challenge yourself!
Listen to Burnt Sienna by Walls here…
Words by Same Teens