A band from London made up of members Sam Willis (of leading London electronic music blog / event curators / DJ team Allez-Allez) and Alessio Natalizia (of Banjo Or Freakout), Walls are an electronic music project that seems to pull out influences from classic krautrock, disco and ambient electronica, particularly influenced by artists such as Neu! and Harmonia. The pair met in 2009 while Allez-Allez were remixing Banjo Or Freakout's Mr. No, they quickly realized that the natural combination of Alessio's guitar play and haunting vocals together with Willis' emotive synth lines and sample manipulation magic was a match made in heaven. An immediately natural pairing, the duo started swapping sound files, and very quickly with very little effort beautiful songs started to emerge.
Having already applied their unique sonic touch on remixes for The Field's Leave It and Pantha Du Prince's future anthem Stick To My Side feat. Panda Bear, that graced the pages of NME and Pitchfork, the pair's highly anticipated self titled debut was released on Kompakt in late April.
They've also just bagged remixes of Caribou and Tracey Thorn, and apparently have loads more music in reserve.
Their music is an outstanding concoction of the best that old and new technology has to offer, taking their inspiration by the sense of discovery, curiosity and playful nature of their approach to making music. You could say they are lost somewhere between the psychedelic airspace occupied by Animal Collective and Boards Of Canada - rolling beauty combined with epic strangeness to the most cerebral degree. Destined to be one of Kompakt's most unparalleled releases in their history, Walls has a lack of concern for the boundaries of genre distinction, but easily fit uniquely between the classic sound of Kompakt and the bliss of Pop Ambient. "It's easy to make noisy and difficult music, what's harder, and feels natural to us is to make music that skates along the edges - melodic, but with a sense of sadness, hope and euphoria at the same time."