Wallpaper

Wallpaper. is Oakland’s Eric Frederic -- gifted producer, multi-instrumentalist songwriter, viral media hustler and disco ball-busting crowd destroyer. Whether crafting his own electro- steeped future beats or cleverly skewering pop culture via his “Death of Auto-Tune” remix (a final tribute to the maligned effect before Wallpaper. retired it too), he effortlessly fuses a long personal history of music-making with bold showmanship and a love for trunk-rattling thump. When first we met Wallpaper. in 2005, the project was Frederic’s way of making minimal electronic music while satirizing the lack of feeling in mainstream pop. The songs were composed on computer and the lyrics delivered strictly in exaggerated Auto-Tune -- a trick used only by Cher at that point -- emphasizing the cold sterility of radio fodder. So when Auto-Tuned songs began to dominate the charts, the truth became stranger (and funnier) than fiction. But with his 2009 album debut, Doodoo Face (Eenie Meenie), Frederic blasted right past satire and into the terra firma of legit songwriting and masterful production. Strains of Daft Punk rattled through the seething, bass-dripping “Celebrity.�... more...