Twin Sister: In Heaven
So much about In Heaven, the full-length debut from Long Island quintet Twin Sister, could be boring as hell: The music flirts with all those annoying genre buzzwords (i.e. “chillwave”); the songs get compared to trend-setters like Beach House and Bjork, mainly because of sweet-natured vocalist Andrea Estella, and the arrangements don’t tend to surprise all that much (check the glowing ‘80s beats on “Space Babe” or the lazily unfolding synth arpeggios that decorate “Luna’s Theme”). But In Heaven, I’ll be damned, somehow manages to rise above its easy reference points, finding subtle ways to impress in spite of its occasionally obvious methods.
And with melodies as strong as these, invention is hardly a concern. From the quiet, vibraphone-soaked opener “Daniel” to “Eastern Green,” the itchy, harmony-driven finale, every track seems to be constructed, first and foremost, around simple, striking vocal hooks—mostly sung by Estella, who oddly never sounds like the same person track-to-track. On “Daniel,” her cuddly, modest alto barely rises above a whisper, as if she recorded her parts at 3 a.m. on the band tour bus. On the mesmerizing “Gene Ciampi,” which sounds the opening theme to a psychedelic children’s Western, she explores a throatier texture: “If you like Gene Ciampi / You will love his movies,” goes the addicting, stupid chorus—but wrapped around that see-sawing, harmonica-doubled melody, it sounds like pure poetry.
Twin Sister treat each track as its own individual universe, placing more importance on tracks than some cohesive body. The tightly-wound funk of “Bad Street” (with its David Byrne-ish lyrical opaqueness and itchy grooves) instantly recalls Talking Heads—a dizzying torrent of organic overdubs locking into a hypnotic trance. On the other hand, the star-gazing ballad “Kimmi in a Rice Field” could just as well be a cut from an Estella solo album, little more than pulsing programmed beats and slick keys underpinning her airy vocal flights.
Moments like “Kimmi” are no doubt lovely, but also blindingly inoffensive—when they occasionally lapse into predictable synth texture, the rest of the band suddenly vanishes, and that doesn’t play to their well-rounded strengths. What makes these guys so great is their willingness to explore a song’s DNA, to fuck around with what makes a track tick. In Heaven is a quirky, forgotten mix-tape you discover wilting underneath your bed, and I (mostly) mean that as a compliment.