Digitalis Industries
Twinsistermoon : Levels and Crossings (F,2008)**°
Because the label themselves was raving so much about this, (“it is better than Comus” I heard someone even saying) I needed to try this item, especially so that with an advance order copy I could get an additional mini-cdr of the group (of only 40 numbered copies). Sonically this comparison is completely irrelevant, because this item has a much more monotone-spatial one-mind linear and even rather blurry sound with its layers which is more typical for lofi and drone-folk recordings than it is comparable to any kind of 70s folk related recordings.
Twinsistermoon is a one man project by Mehdi Amaziane (??), half of a duo which was called Natural Snow Buildings, who made some limited drone-folk recordings before. I wish there were more lyrics written down, because now I can hardly understand the whispery dreamy soft singing, while the few lyrics with album cover and its semi-Aztec drawings give an idea that this is all a metaphor of a personal story of someone hurt in love looking for a destined to be self-destructive solution because he feels too united with something that is known to be a lost game from beforehand, like an Aztec ritual to please the sun gods, invented to look for solutions of things that can’t be understood or solved. The thought and ritual is self absorbing. I do like the lyrics of ‘the black under’ : “only the black under your nails belongs to satan, the rest of your body is nothing but god’s property. Now you can scratch the earth, the surface of the sky, leaving traces, leaving scars, extracting and eating the liver of the stars”. Mehdi’s voice is as whispery as what I call the poor or introverted minstrels (like Rivulets,..) but he sounds much more closer to the area of a soft voice like Vasthi bunyan, even when not being feminine, and this is accompanied with picking guitar mostly, various small songs in between larger tracks of a more stoned vibe : drone-folk with harmonium, flutes, strummed guitar, wordless background singing, or on the last track, also bowed electrified string sounds. Sadly these instrumentals are recorded and mixed vague and blurry. There is much potential in the concept, while it does not come out enough, although the drawings help a little to feel the imaginations, the whole concept but with the last track, which has a five minute silence (like often in a hidden way extra minutes are added) before a last lost outro, the little strength in it, this way, thoroughly, also sadly falls apart through lack of a coherent clarity and structure to keeps it together as a document.
The digipack CD is strictly limited to 500 copies.
- bonus cdr for the first 40 buyers:
Digitalis Industries Twinsistermoon : Rivers of Blood Ending In The Sun (F,2008)*°'
Also the small bonus cdr has attractive artwork, but the black spots on the outside are sticky and a part of it already sticks in the paper digipack, luckily not disturbing with the artwork much, but it is NOT the best idea not to protect this with extra plastic. This is a 5- track cdr of around 23 minutes. Nice to hear is the last track, the traditional (?) “House Carpenter’s Daughter” voice and guitar only, vaguely V.Bunyan-like. Other tracks are like bonus variations of drones and one song, of a bit boring additional similarity.
