Welcome return for Walls on Kompakt with a ship-shape EP that heralds their sophomore album for the label. The UK-based duo of Sam Willis and Alessio 'Banjo Or Freakout' Natalizia have hit upon a winning formula, combining shoegazey songwriting with effervescent electronic textures rooted in house and techno - it's pop ambient, basically, so no surprise that they've found a home away from home in Cologne. With 'Sunporch' they go for an even more epic sound - Alessio's choirboy vocals looped and layered across Harmonia-style arpeggios and a mid-paced, nicely rickety but unrelenting 4/4 - while the reprise, a separate track unto itself, is mellifluous ambient techno in the time-honoured Kompakt style. 'Tight Spots' is a craftier bugger, its synth lines menacing as well as seductive, its neo-schaffel rhythm and surrounding FX conjuring a very real sense of unease. Sumptuously melodic and cinematic nonetheless, it's up there with the best Walls have ever produced, and bodes well for that album.
A Sunporch
B1 Sunporch (Reprise)
B2 Tight Spots
