Today Danish/Finnish band Liima (featuring all three members of Efterklang) have announced details of their second album, '1982', to be released on November 3rd 2017 via City Slang. They have shared the album's title track and have also confirmed Autumn European tour dates with Grizzly Bear, whose bassist Chris Taylor co-produced this new record.
In the year 1982, Time Magazine chose the first ever non-human person of the year', the Personal Computer. It's also the year that Liima's Casper Clausen was born, with the other three band members born in the surrounding years. Though '1982' is not an album that tries to mimic the sounds of that year, it is an album borne of influences and circumstances that stem back to that point in time. It's an album that sees the band questioning the concept of identity and our place in time - as much an album of existential questioning and of looking forward as it is of nostalgia and reflection.
I think our collective memory and consciousness as a band is shaped from being born in the beginning of the 80's' explains Clausen. It's a time and place that I keep returning to, to understand and make sense of. It has a lot of personal relevance and so little at the same time, because in time and space it is far away... Everything is changing all the time, nostalgia is looking back, but I'm on the run, even when I stand still.'
The video for the album's title track, shared online today, was created by director and visual artist Baby Duka: "Liima reached out to me while I was in the middle of developing a computer game - the melancholy world of synths and wet drums fit perfectly with an idea I've been toying with for a while: to mix the pixel graphics of the Atari and C64 with a 3D camera. I saw it as a cool opportunity to visualize an Orwellian dystopia where the dream of being in another place is always present in the human individual.
Liima was born as much of breaking old habits as building new habits, and their second album, '1982', provides a masterclass in pushing beyond one's established comfort zones.
Like its predecessor, '1982' was written during four residencies, beginning in January, 2016 - before Liima's debut 'ii' was even released - at The London Edition, where Casper Clausen, Rasmus Stolberg, Mads Brauer and Tatu Rönkkö worked in a club in the hotel's basement, sometimes watched by small crowds, much as PJ Harvey was during the making of The Hope Six Demolition Project at London's Somerset House.
They reassembled at another hotel in Copenhagen before embarking upon tours of North America, South America, and Europe. Even then, they'd reconvene between trips to continue work, first in the less glamorous surroundings of a music conservatory in Viseu, Portugal, in July 2016, then, finally, in August, at Berlin's Michelberger Hotel. By the time they gathered in Mankku Studios in Porvoo - again in the Finnish countryside - Liima were more than ready to begin recording with Grizzly Bear's Chris Taylor as co-producer.
'1982' finds Liima - musically and lyrically - exploring themes that shaped their youth while looking forward to a future in times that feel as uncertain as they ever might have been, and in which we all struggle to find our identity. Finding values of life, giving up on values of life... Our civilisation, our way of life and our liberal thinking is threatened and challenged...' Clausen muses. I say our time, but could it be MY time, MY age. Was it like that for my father when he was 35 years old I'm wondering, I guess the album is wondering.'
Here, amidst the contemplation and questioning, the musicians stake their claim firmly to both their new band and their new sound. For a band originally founded upon enthusiastic acts of spontaneity, '1982' represents a huge, sophisticated leap forward. The decision to form Liima may have been as bold and radical as their new sound, but the consequences speak for themselves.
