Album Review: 1982 by Liima

‘1982’ takes the gooey melodies and fat percussion of yesteryear synth pop and imbues it not only with Liima’s flare for the operatic, but also a deeper, more robust production style; it almost feels like playing an 8-bit video game on a 2017 console. Always conscious of the relationship between setting and music (Efterklang wrote and performed an opera in a Cold War-era bunker during 2015), the band workshopped ‘1982’ in front of Norwegian school children, a decision that probably factors into how broad and tactile the melodies are here even compared to 2016's ‘ii’. They then recorded in a large wooden ballroom, giving it their trademark sense spaciousness and scale without sacrificing the warmth of the chords and vocals.

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Finnish quartet Liima debuted in 2016 as a side project of textural pop specialists Efterklang, when members Casper Clausen, Rasmus Stolberg, and Mads Brauer collaborated with jazz drummer Tatu Rönkkö. Initially conceived as a one-off, the new band proved to be a productive endeavor and continued to bear enough fruit for a second offering. Similar to Efterklang, Liima paints a wide aural canvas of atmospheric tones and timbres with roads that snake through snowy ambient vistas and lush fjords of dramatic electro-pop.

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