walls: urals

Walls (Alessio Natalizia and Sam Willis) return with their third and final studio album, Urals. Urals is the conclusion of a three-album cycle that began with their self-titled debut in 2010, and continued in 2011 with Coracle. This album is an accumulation of four years of studio exploration, inverting their signature sound into a new, more intense dimension, the duo once again exploring futuristic vistas with their coruscating synth lines, spiraling guitar figures, and howling distortion and noise. Informed by the creation/curation of their burgeoning Ecstatic Recordings imprint that has seen them release music by kindred spirits such as Pye Corner Audio, Axel Willner (The Field), and L/F/D/M, among others, as well as their own individual explorations (Natalizia's caustic, minimal synth workouts as Not Waving, and Willis's lurid, ritualistic techno as Primitive World) Urals pushes the envelope a long way from the template they set out with on tracks such as "Burnt Sienna" or "Hang Four." From the stumbling, off-kilter groove of the title-track to the probing kosmische pulses of "Altai" to the intense, ear-shredding acid of "I Can't Give You Anything But Love" to the sublime synth-scape paean "Radiance," it's clear that Willis and Natalizia are taking leave of the Walls project at the top of their game. Mastered by Sonic Boom (Spacemen 3, Spectrum) at New Atlantis Studios. white vinyl