infiniteinalldirections
Somehow this album is focused, precise and throughout the same moment: expansive. Each time you move through this record… it moves through you.
A certain amount changed between 'Zero Crossing' and 'At least a hundred fingers'. Mark left - not due to differences, musical or otherwise, just life stuff - and in the meantime Harry and Charlie kept writing. There was also a complete change of writing/recording process. Whilst for the first record the majority of the synth lines were recorded as MIDI, messed around with there, and then bounced down as audio at the last possible moment, advances in computer processing speed and hard drives meant that, for this second record, almost everything was recorded live, at least initially, and then edited, folded, spindled and mutilated until we had the thing we were happy with. Then the world-wide Covid pandemic got going during the final year of recording, and meant that the album had to be largely finished remotely, with Charlie and Harry recording final parts and bouncing them back and forth to each other via email, and Francesca and Susanne recording their parts from their own home studios.
While the album nods to Drum and Bass, amongst a myriad other sub-genres of electronic music, each track carves its own unique sonic space, imagining alternative worlds of their own. Tilt/Shift, for example, starts off in Drum and Bass territory, before veering off to something like a cross between a Berlin-school/"Sinner Man" sound-world, albeit running at 174 BPM. The live lead vocal from mezzo-soprano Francesca Genco floats on top, fusing Mediterranean, Middle Eastern and Asian vocal styles. Second track Asha, the name taken from the Sanskrit word for hope or desire, showcases Harry’s guitar playing with a mixture of Indian and Blues influences. Floe is built from a variety of field recordings including concrete and Californian wildfires tuned to A♭minor, starting slowly before the tempo doubles and a more Drum and Bass section takes over. Buchla Space nods to Dub, although with the rather un-Dubby time signature of 7/8 for the final third, and fuses East and West in the lead violin line, wonderfully played by world-renowned soloist and chamber musician Susanne Stanzelei.
credits
released October 8, 2021
All tracks written, performed and produced by Twofish, who are:
Harry Richardson: Keyboards, Guitars, Bass
Charlie Humble: Keyboards, Didgeridoo
Additional musicians:
Francesca Genco: Vocals on Tilt/Shift
Susanne Stanzeleit: Violin on Buchla Space
Amy Gedgaudas: Vocal sample on Straylight
All tracks mixed by Harry Richardson
Recorded at Twofish’s studio in Essex, UK
Mastered at: The Lodge NYC
Mastering Engineer: Emily Lazar
Assistant Engineer: Chris Allgood
Twofish, a group that first became known via London's Whirl-Y-Gig club back in the Shoreditch days, have been writing their cinematic "intelligent ambient techno" together for around 15 years.
Reminiscent of the best of Tangerine Dream and the other early synth pioneers this is a beautiful, atmospheric record made by Flood, Ed Buller, Dave Bessell and Mel Wesson. Twofish
Lovely, lovely psychedelic ambient dub. Check out "Up the Xylem Elevator" off this and Paranormaloid from "In Formation" as two example off how great they are. Twofish
Hypnotic songs from this Cameroon-based musician, with vibrant rhythms and dazzling synths in songs that keep pushing forward. Bandcamp New & Notable Jul 18, 2021