The latest in a long line of bands to have the hipsters frothing at the mouth, Twin Sister's two EPs - their debut "Vampires With Dreaming Kids" and the more recent "Color Your Life" - finally get a physical release in the UK with Domino's Double Six imprint stumping up the hard-earned cash for this double CD set.
With "Vampires With Dreaming Kids" released initially as a free download from their website, those of you with your finger on the pulse may have already had the chance to investigate Twin Sister's brand of wavy pop. Mining a similarly woozy sonic seam to other dream pop revivalists, such as Halou, Trespassers William and more recently, Beach House, Twin Sister throw down an added layer of lazy composure - a relaxed Brooklyn sense of ease - on top of their swirling pop gems. "Ginger", one of the debut's stand-out tracks, is a nimble little beast, generous on the reverb but nevertheless light on its feet, propelled along by a Ronettes-like beat and Andrea Estella's breathy nonsensical vocals ("Ginger on your head/threw my coat/no more I drink spicy pink/spicy pink soup"). More distinctly, it displays an effortless, timeless cool - a trait that the indie hipsters spouting off about them would do well to imitate - that resurfaces continually throughout the ten tracks on offer here.
For if "Ginger" was cool, then the magical "All Around And Away We Go" sends the meter rocketing. A woozy slice of seventies-style disco soul, the bass is set to funk, the guitars wound back to reverb and the wah wah dusted off for a once around the block. "All Around And Away We Go" displays just how far the band has developed sound-wise, unsurprising considering their debut dates from November 2008.
Indeed, for where "Vampires With Dreaming Kids" played out (as debuts often do) as an intriguing but gentle introduction to Twin Sister, "Color Your Life" takes the romantic vibe and raises it, adding side-orders of eeriness - the odd, crooning alt-pop of "Milk & Honey" - and almost ambient experimentalism, such as the mournful Clangers-esque deep-space meandering of "Galaxy Plateau", whose gradual ebb and flow recalls more of the dream but less of the pop as it segues into "Phenomenons". The album's final serving is a languidly mellow track of coastal grooves that has more than a touch of the chillwave movement to it. Warmth seems to seep from its every pore as Estella whispers "I've always needed you/across the landscapes of my body/you put me in the mood".
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Yet for a band producing such undeniably "cool" music, there is nevertheless a sweetly self-conscious edge to their music (with an average age of 22, Twin Sister are still a relatively young band, after all).
"I Want A House" is traditionally conformist in lyric (I want a house/built of old wood/you can paint it any color you like/just so long as I can live with you), but still lopes along on smatters of jagged guitar and patters of snare, sprinkled sparingly over its four-odd minutes. Hypnotically addictive, the spiralling track drifts leisurely - like a suburban middle-aged husband mowing a never-ending lawn one balmy Saturday afternoon - on waves of gentle organ and twinkling wind-chimes before disappearing with the fading light. And the delightfully smooth "Lady Daydream" deserves mention not only for its Sting and the Police-style chiming guitars, but also the killer line, "Even though I'm losing/doesn't make me a loser/yet", the final (albeit clipped) "yet" a semi-embarrassed affirmation of the band's self-confessed "loser" status.
Some may argue that this winning combination of warm licks, dreamy ambience and heady romanticism is nothing more than seize-the-zeitgeist pop, a product of the Beach House-aping, (The xx)eroxing, blurrily lo-fi movement. They would be wrong. Not only are they two damn-fine EPs in their own right, but the leaps made between "Vampires With Dreaming Kids" and "Color Your Life" suggest that Twin Sister will go even further, far beyond anything that the hipsters can imagine at this present time.
Twin Sister online (includes a back catalogue of demos and early releases available to download for free)
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