Color Your Life.

Twin Sister: their songs are pretty, they’re light, they’re very airy. &, but actually, No they're not. Because they can also be kind of angular & dark & dissonant, even. In fact Noisy enough, on at least one occasion, to have provoked actual controversy in my household. Oh, & but don’t forget bouncy. Frequently, they’re bouncy.

On the new EP, Color Your Life, Twin Sister’s songs continue to follow actual trajectories. They start out in one place, & then they go & they end up somewhere very much else. There’s really no predicting where they’re going to go along the way. &, actually, I’m not always immediately certain of where they’ve just been. So: Replay.

Earlier, I have said that Twin Sister makes (maybe deliberately) imperfect Pop. It occurs to me now that there is a fundamental, uh, inefficiency to these oddly-timbered & meandering songs. Which are therefore sort of the polar opposite of Pop. Ok, candidly: I’m not sure I understand yet what this music is or is trying to be. I’m not sure the band has a clear handle on that yet, either. To my ears, this music continues to teeter on the edge of coalescence. It hasn’t yet settled into whatever it’s going to be.

By way of a digressive (& admittedly oversimplified) analogy, I will cite to Talking Heads, circa 1977. From the perspective of the music they emulated (which was Funk), their efforts were clumsy, rudimentary, unsuccessful. Along the way though, they made something wholly fresh & genuinely thrilling. That's what I'm trying to get at when I say that the best feature of Twin Sister's version of Pop is that it's done sort of wrong.

At this point, I can’t always clearly discern where Twin Sister are coming from or where they’re going. But they’re evidently getting very busy, & I think they’re going to do some very interesting things. I’m on the edge of my seat.

In the meantime, Color Your Life is eccentric, surprising, fun, & (for now) free. For the next week or so, the download is gratis at the band’s website. But I can go ahead & start you off right here:

TS - Milk & Honey (mp3)

The Mumlers

If, just hypothetically, one were going out to a show on a Tuesday night (a very stormy, rainy Tuesday night actually), & if there were three bands on the bill of the aforementioned show, then, Well. It might be reasonable for one to not be in such a hurry to get there, right, since the headliner won’t go on until like, what? Ten o’clock?

“One” in this particular instance being (hello?) Me, & “the headliner” here being Morning Benders, and “Tuesday” I’ll just go ahead & tell you was the night before last. & so anyway, I waited out the rain (& the hail, Jesus!) for a little while there before heading on out. Because (let’s face it) probably the first of 3 bands on the bill will be something to just endure while spending all your cash on beer, waiting for the show you came for to come on & get started already. (& I’m on my feet here, right?) I mean, probably you won’t miss anything good that early. Right?

I knew what I was doing, I took that risk.



I don’t know much of anything about this band called the Mumlers. I don’t know how long they had already played before I got there. I think I heard about 2 and one-half songs, something like that. But Wow I really wanted to hear some more of that. It was a Bluesy, countrified thing with lots of horns so –like a New Orleans sort of deal, I guess. The singer is a gangly youngster with a “bad” haircut (is homemade the new chic?), & a graveled, soulful voice sounding older than his fresh face looks. It wasn’t my usual thing. But I really should’ve gotten there on time, this time.

I’m going to have to check out this band the Mumlers. I’m going to start right here & here, & then I’m going to get back to you on this.

Good Morning.

The Morning Benders

The Independent

San Francisco, CA

March 30, 2010

If so inclined, one could find reasons to quibble. i.e., the set was barely an hour long, consisting essentially of the Big Echo album, w/song order shuffled. No encore either, it was pretty much wham-bam thx & goodnight.

Honestly though: it was a great show, & it was a good hour later before I even thought to get critical like that. The Morning Benders have quickly matured into a very sharp & very satisfying live band. Still centered around the original & efficient trio, they’re currently touring as a 5-piece. The new songs, so richly & lushly produced on the album, were fleshed out beautifully onstage. All of the playing was fresh, exuberant, totally fun.

Of course, this was something of a triumphant return: the album is a big hit (in indie terms), the tour has been selling out left & right, NY, LA, & SXSW all went well, Hey life is looking good for the Morning Benders. This hometown show was all sold out, & the mood appropriately festive.

As per my usual preference, I stood right up in front of the stage. That put me amidst all the girls, sighing & fawning all gaga for Chris Chu. What a heart-throb, what a dreamboat. Which ought not to suggest that Chris is just a pretty face, no way that. He is waifish & mignon, yes, but he’s also a man all in charge of his destiny. The sweetness is there but it’s plenty balanced; there were portions of actual ferocity. It’s a rock & roll band, after all.

& I have commented before about Julian Harmon’s drumming, of which I am an unreserved fan. But I’m not certain I’ve ever been fully appreciative of Tim Or’s bass playing. Like every truly great bassist, Tim’s grapple against those unwieldy blocks of sound is undertaken w/grace, w/fluidity. He constantly does difficult things & he makes them all look inevitable.

The closing number was “Excuses,” accompanied by a string trio & members of both opening bands. I think I counted thirteen people on the Indy’s little stage. Nicely done, that.

New Video by the Gossip.

I love this band. The current tour brings them back to San Francisco (again, already!). April 19 at the Regency Ballroom.

Holy Fuck.

Holy Fuck.

That’s the band name, it’s Holy Fuck. OK, I’ve said it three times now I won’t belabor it. (Yeah, not much!) Not every band has a central conceit but this one here evidently does, which is as follows: they make electronic music, but not by the “usual” methods. & so, the typical tools –the sampling, the looping, the programming, & cetera– are actually not among the key ingredients here.

On first listen, you may find that surprising. Because, texturally, this music does sound pretty-well synthesized. & even rhythmically, you’ll hear a kind-of-a-sort-of-a mechanized groove. But. Not so fast bc something else is going on here, which entails a degree of looseness, of –I don’t know– warmth or something. & sweat. Not incidentally, you’ll perhaps notice the drumming. Which is not performed by coded lines of software, but rather by human arms & hands holding wooden sticks. Sticks, I say! (Also, I understand that HF deploys old analog instruments, non-musical noisemakers, & sometimes toys.)

It’s a kind of a balancing act, this music made by humans, yet all dressed up to sound like it’s made by machines. The new album’s (probably-incongruous) title is Latin, & it is set for release on May 11. Holy Fuck’s management has thus far ignored my polite request for an advance listen, but sometimes these things do work out. I'll keep you posted.

In the meantime, download the advance track here:

HF - Latin America (mp3)

New Lykke Li Video

You probably already know about Lykke Li, yeah? 24-year-old Swedish singer, her debut album Youth Novels drew some attention in 2008. She played Coachella last year. She's got a cool name. Anyway, "Possibility" is the first bit of the new album that, I gather is still in progress & has no official release date targeted yet.

Intriguing.

Go, go.

Check this: “All around and Away We Go” is an early leak from Twin Sister’s upcoming mini-album on Infinite Best Recordings, to be called Color Your Life. Once again, this is a band that delights in coloring outside the lines.

OK, so I get now that I should expect to be surprised by Twin Sister, but still: I did not anticipate this post-proto-disco-techno vamp référant w/the airy-sexy vocal. & after getting my sea legs on that, I certainly did not expect the little feedback interlude at ~2:20, punctuated incongruously by what I had already sussed was not some stranger’s errant ringtone. That 22 seconds of ambient whisper at the ending ices the cake nicely, nicely.

You just may have heard it first here:

TS All Around & Away We Go (mp3)