This is a welcome oddity. The quartet WALLPAPER SILHOUETTES hail from Trondheim, Norway and have been doing their thing since 1999.
Strange as it may seem their thing is to proudly and skilfully resurrect the soul/funk/punk sound of Postcard Records, the kitchen sink glamour of The Associates and the urbane epic flourishes of The Chameleons. It’s a delightful and engaging cocktail that succeeds in reaffirming my enthusiasm for this music of 20+ years ago by actually creating an album that could be a long lost gem resurrected by the archivists at LTM Publishing.
It’s also a fairly ramshackle affair and self-evidently a first stab at pulling together their love for the music of this period into an album. Luckily the lack of coherency only increases the charm of ‘Echo The World (We Live In)’ and if anything serves to reinforce the DIY ethic that Postcard propounded all those years ago. This is as much a celebration of making music on your own terms as it is of the influences that have informed it.
The vocals are predominantly a cross between Edwyn Collins and Ian Curtis, their (obviously) mournful and dour undercurrent enhanced by the Scandinavian inflection. Key moments include the Orange Juice inspired About You, the guitar ambience of ‘Bells’ (very Chameleons) and the Joy Division coated ‘Silence Within Me’. Special mention though goes to the “if Kraftwerk played guitars” joy of ‘Not Supporting Walls’ and the atmospheric melody of the instrumental title track.
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Great music is always about possibilities and new directions and with ‘Echo The World (We Live In)’ WALLPAPER SILHOUETTES have recaptured that musical spirit from the early 80s. Fortunately they’ve done it in such a way that demonstrates that history and changes in taste have failed to bring anything remotely approaching closure to that spirit and inventiveness. Once again so much of today’s music seems sterile and unimaginative by comparison.
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