Some pointers suggest how Finland’s Shadowplay might sound. They took their name from a Joy Division song. Their key founder member was Brandi Ifgray – born Visa Ruokonen. He had been in the final line-up of first-generation Finnish punk band Ratsia. Add in Shadowplay’s 1988 first album Touch and Glow’s cover version of Gang Of Four’s “Damaged Goods” and that would seem to nail it. Dark then, with the edge of punk.
However, the back of Touch and Glow’s sleeve has a picture of the band which includes a trumpet player, someone at an upright piano and a double bassist. The only electric instrument is a guitar. Stick the album on and opening cut “Laughing at the Trees” comes across as a form of jazz-aligned post-punk. Are The Waterboys in there? Radio Ethiopia Patti Smith? Magazine? A little further on, “Feel the Night” is a raw-boned, speedy rocker with a slight taste of the New York band Certain General. Are Australia’s The Scientists on this wavelength too? Whatever Shadowplay were doing, it is tough to pin down.
Move forward to 1993 and Shadowplay’s second album Eggs & Pop. With a more unified feel than its predecessor and fewer overt nods to jazz, it is still difficult to get a handle on. The first track, “Dirtysweet,” instantly makes its case. Driving and anthemic yet reserved, it evokes the raw ingredients The Killers refined so much they barely left anything except the weakest echo of edginess. Yet in spite of this forcefulness Shadowplay – despite Eggs & Pop receiving a US release in 1995 – did not convincingly break out of Finland. There were open ears though. Reviewing the American issue of Eggs & Pop in 1995, Tim Hulsizer wrote the album “is polished, beautiful at times, and perhaps most importantly, entertaining. The songs are finely crafted, jazzy pop gems that actually succeed in drawing the listener in the first time around with their excellent melodies and arrangements.”
Eggs & Pop was a best-seller in Finland, where it topped 1993’s year-end polls. Now, Touch and Glow and Eggs & Pop (in a new cover) have been reissued on vinyl (the latter was originally issued on CD only in Finland and the US). Thanks to these new versions of the albums, it’s never been easier to hear what the – justified – fuss was about.
Shadowplay formed in 1982. Brandi Ifgray wasn’t the only band member with a pedigree. Bassist Hande Virkki had been in Helsinki new wavers Lola Ego. Drummer Yrjö Knuuttila had been in the for-real legendary goth-slanted band Musta Paraati. On forming, Shadowplay were clearly aiming to occupy a different space to that previously inhabited by the former bands of some of their members. 1985’s debut Shadowplay single “Night Porter” showcased the nightclub-jazz feel suffusing their music.
When Touch and Glow came out, the context was made explicit: the album’s credits listed inspirations, including Lounge Lizards, Magazine, The Only Ones, Charlie Parker, Annette Peacock, Iggy Pop, “Sixties soul,” Patti Smith, Sonic Youth and Lesley Woods (of Au Pairs). Clearly, all of this and more went in to what was heard. Yet Shadowplay’s individualistic line of attack made and makes them stylistically slippery. There were line-up changes and fluidity – Jimi Tenor guests on sax on Touch and Glow – but the core ethos of post-punk boundary pushing with a jazz sensibility was never abandoned.
Time had been kind to Touch and Glow and Eggs & Pop. Neither album sounds dated. Both are very fresh and alive. Anyone swayed by the current boom in what’s been dubbed darkwave will need to hear Shadowplay. This isn’t the full story: there are non-album singles and EPs, a third album too. Seek these reissues out. Perhaps, albeit belatedly, Shadowplay will now find the international audience which could have been theirs 30 to 35 years ago.
- Next week: Phase By Phase – The Virgin Years. Three-CD set collecting the albums former Tangerine Dream member Peter Baumann made between 1976 and 1981
- More reissue reviews on theartsdesk
- Kieron Tyler’s website
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