A Holiday Party from the Future
December 19th, 2011Twin Sister – The Bowery Ballroom – December 17, 2011
Twin Sister
The Bowery Ballroom was packed full of revelers for Twin Sister’s headlining set on Saturday night, as part of a sold-out holiday-themed show sponsored by ubiquitous music Web site Brooklyn Vegan. The five-piece specializes in a mellow style of spaced-out disco, the likes of which might be at home on an easy-listening station—on Mars. Equal parts soothing, chilling, ethereal and danceable, the music contains a unique otherworldly quality, largely due to singer Andrea Estella’s singular voice, which ranges from smooth and velvety to a high-pitched coo.
Although the band is fairly young (both in inception and members’ ages), they’ve already released a couple EPs and a full-length record since forming in 2008, and the group played a nice selection of songs from those discs during the set. Upbeat ones, like “Stop” and “Bad Street,” got the crowd moving, while “Lady Daydream” and “Eastern Green” enveloped the audience with slow, trippy grooves. “Gene Ciampi” contained a spaghetti western vibe, while the dramatic crooner “Spain” would fit nicely as a futuristic James Bond theme.
Openers Widowspeak also delivered a strong set: a beautiful interplay of warm reverb and singer Molly Hamilton’s soft, textured voice. Despite receiving a good deal of rapturous praise over the past year for their ’90s-inspired hazy rock, the band seemed endearingly modest, and when Hamilton shyly said, “Happy holidays” at the end of the set, flashing an awkward thumbs up, she seemed to almost immediately cringe with embarrassment, rushing to grab her gear and get offstage. While Widowspeak and Twin Sister may not be the kind of music you associate with your typical holiday party, they sure seemed to get the folks in the crowd in the (futuristic, spacey, tripped-out) holiday spirit last night. —Alena Kastin
