Twinsister​moon — Bogyrealm Vessels

This exquisitely packaged, pro-pressed cd comes in a book-like digipak; with laboured over artwork that reminds me very much of a certain artist - but I forget which one (!). The digipak is adorned with pictures that suggest a story to the release: some kind of friendship or relationship between a schoolgirl and an alien being; and whilst Twinsistermoon certainly deal in psychedelia; the sounds on the album aren’t of a sci-fi bent.

The tracks on “Bogyrealm Vessels” are much more earthbound than exploring outer space; though its a hazy vision, possibly clouded by memory. To some extent, the image of a child looking skyward at the stars and planets, through clouds and trees, may well be an apt one for describing this album. The definite distress to the overall sound, possibly acquired through the use of a four-track, suggests antiquity and an other-worldliness (and also - as before - the filtering of memory). This, combined with the simplicity and “innocence” of some of the pieces, sometimes bordering on twee, gives “Bogyrealm Vessels” a child-like feel; in a good way. A lazy short cut here, is to file Twinsistermoon between The Tower Recordings and Lubos Fiser’s beautiful soundtrack to “Valerie And Her Week Of Wonders”; there’s the same hazy, murky folk and drone of the first, and similar colours, “innocence” and “magic” to the second. These ingredients are presented on “Bogyrealm Vessels” in two distinct forms, to be simplistic: drone tracks, and small songs - which to some extent alternate throughout the album. The drones are organic sounding and reverberating, using feedback, cymbals, guitar noise and organ amongst other things. The folky songs are predominantly performed with acoustic guitar and breathy, female vocals; although both these are multi-tracked, and processed by reverb. There are a few pieces which blur these boundaries, with vocalisation on “drone” tracks and added instrumentation on “song” pieces, but they still give a reasonable sense of the album’s composition.

Whilst this is a very competent album, it rather stands or falls by your reception to the atmosphere it creates. Despite the fairly limited palette of sounds, the tracks often sound a little cluttered; due in part to the noisy, lo-fi production. This means that details are somewhat lost, and the tracks almost become washes of sound and tone - for instance, to be critical, the lack of any real clarity in the vocals means that any lyrics are “lost”, and the songs essentially blur into one. Thus, the whole release has a rather limited and compressed range in terms of colour and feel; and if this range appeals to your ear, then you have a very charming, evocative album. To me, however, it all comes across as rather “flat” and unengaging…