By Stef Siepel March 29, 2013 The Weekly Froth! A weekly take on six tracks, most of which have recently popped up somewhere in the blogosphere. Bit of a mixed bag with a slight leaning towards house, disco, and remixes, but generally just anything that for some reason tickled the writer’s fancy. Track of the week: ‘You Are My Destiny’ by The Juan MacLean Mind you, this isn’t the full track, but it’s so good to see The Juan MacLean back in [...]
"A refreshingly honest album that combines intelligent writing with addictive hooks..." Chad Valley | Young Hunger Hailing from picturesque city of Oxford, Hugo Manuel - better known as Chad Valley - is one of the leading proponents of the chillwave movement currently sweeping the music scene on both sides of the Atlantic. Cut from the same cloth as American artist Toro Y Moi, Manuel first set tongues wagging and ears twitching with the release of his self titled EP in June of this year. Not content to rest on his laurels, Manuel has collaborated [...]
Photos by G. Twin Shadow On September 28, 2012 Music Hall of Williamsburg presented another great double bill of music at the sold out Twin Shadow and Niki and The Dove show. A day prior, the same lineup played the much larger (and also sold out) Webster Hall in Manhattan so it was a special treat to see this show in a smaller venue. A lot has been said online about Twin Shadow, but I rarely believe what I read since most of the [...]
George Lewis, Jr. brought the beats to the Casbah // Follow Owl and Bear on Facebook and Twitter for contests, MP3s, and links that don't make it onto the blog.
By Ace Ubas For two of the acts that played at the Glasshouse on a sold-out Saturday night, their individual performances were a testament to their success in 2012 with each taking a different route. The Los Angeles-based disco duo Poolside released their debut album Pacific Standard Time to rave reviews while local DJs have dubbed them the ideal band to listen to during the summer and have even described their sound as “daytime disco.” While for George Lewis Jr. ...
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars When you receive a record in the mail, and notice that there's just one man behind the project, sometimes you jump to inclusions, expecting the output to merely be the work of a man and his laptop. Fortunately for everyone, this is not the case with Deepak Mantena and his project Junk Culture . Sure, the new record, Wild Quiet , definitely uses some electronic flourishes, but the accompanying music makes it a stand out among many of its [...]
I've listened to a few tracks by Twin Shadow and have, more-or-less, enjoyed what I've heard. Being a virgin to most of his music would presumably validate me as an appropriate candidate for a review no? OK... Well regardless, here's what I thought of the show. Walking in, the opening band was a monotone, nu-wave, shoe gaze act; seemed to fit for an opener. The crowd jived to their voice. The only reason I know their name, Pool Side , is because I overheard someone saying it walking out. They had a weak "outroduction". Overall, [...]
Twin Shadow's album Confess is one of the best new records I've heard in months. Confess features eleven (including the hidden track) eminently danceable tunes steeped in the aesthetic of 802s synth pop. Twin Shadow is the name under which the photogenic George Lewis Jr. has performed since 2006; on Confess he reveals himself to be a songwriter and producer of remarkable talent. If his voice reminds me of anyone in particular, it's Babatunde Adebimpe of TV On The Radio, but there are echoes of the venerable Peter Gabriel and Sting here as well. [...]
De-Affaire Festival 2012 By Stef Siepel July 14-20, 2012 In our city, we basically have one local festival; a festival that immediately is kind of awesome. For seven evenings straight, about six or seven bands per day from all over the world will play, and everyone can enter the grounds (a lovely local park) for free. So if you’re from the city itself, it’s a walk and you are immediately surrounded by four stages (big, small, local, DJs), and even if you have to come from far, you [...]
Twin Shadow - Confess By Russell Warfield There’s a moment during the bridge to the pulsating and brilliant ‘Patience’ where you can actually hear the tightness of the guitarist’s jeans. So many artists – or, more accurately, the reviewers of so many artists – throw around words like ‘homage’, ‘throwback’ and, the worst offender, ‘nostalgia’ (guilty!) that it’s ironically refreshing when an artist like Twin Shadow comes along and wholly inhabits the era he’s invoking, never winking, not self-consciously mining the past, [...]
George Lewis Jr.'s 2010 debut, Forget , was nothing if not unassuming. Chris Taylor (of Grizzly Bear) handled production that would rather have you disregard the fact that it could reasonably be described as lush, fulfilling and, very possibly, colorful. Twin Shadow is a character compiled of heartbreak, lonesome musicianship and probably a few too many long nights soundtracked by Depeche Mode's Some Great Reward . That flag was flown fairly low on that album, opting rather for more emotive instrumentation and esoteric phrasing. Two years later, that character serves no purpose in the frame of [...]
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars Big hair, high-waist jeans and new wave pop are all things that belong to the eighties, right? Wrong. These are all things that aren’t hard to find at present, but unlike the first two on that list, George Lewis Jr. brings his take on eighties new wave to the present with a sleek soulfulness that makes for a plain sexy record in Confess. From the album title, it’s apparent that this is going to be somewhat of an intimate work, and Lewis does not disappoint on this [...]
Twin Shadow - 'Confess' (UK Release: 9 July '12) // Words: Rajan Lakhani Twin Shadow ’s 'Confess' is even more rooted in the 80s than George Lewis Jnr ’s stunning debut. However, rather than another set of tasteful new wave, he embraces the decade’s musical spirit warts and all, including some of its more cheesy elements. The stop-gap single 'Changes' suggested a more optimistic and dance-oriented direction, as if the man [...]
George Lewis Jr . (former bedroom producer TWIN SHADOW , whose first album, Forget , cut through all the bullshit and established him as a musical artist for, like, realsies) is getting back on the bike, literally and metaphorically. Eighteen months after Forget 's release he comes offering Confess , an album spawned of motorbike crashes and the euphoria of early morning rides. It's Eighties New Wave. Not the mock 802s New Wave that's been inescapable in the music industry over the past few [...]
There's something classic, and iconically American about the cover of Twin Shadow's new record . There stands the project's mastermind George Lewis Jr., pristine rockabilly pompadour combed beyond perfection, wrapped in a worn leather jacket, the look across his face somewhere between pretty boy smugness and outsider vulnerability. In all its nostalgic simplicity, it almost immediately locates Lewis in a long and romantic mythology of bad boys, stretching back at least as far as James Dean. Lewis' claim that Confess was inspired by a motorcycle accident, self-admitted fast living and debauchery on the road, even his slick, [...]
As Twin Shadow , George Lewis Jr. digs into the pop-friendly realm of blistering self-assessment where the only obvious method is to pump out insanely engaging, dance-friendly numbers. Throughout Confess , listeners aren’t sure whether to root for Lewis or hope he’ll just stop investing in unrequited love. Regardless, his latest record sees him getting over his humble debut album, Forget , as an electronic star with a predisposition to bad decisions. Throughout Confess , he is thematically bound [...]
Following graciously in the steps of a phenomenal debut, Confess continues George Lewis, Jr.'s emergence as a talented songwriter and performer with a penchant for dark, ‘80s-inspired pop and post-punk
Twin Shadow brings some better production and a stronger new wave aesthetic on this sophomore album, but the songwriting and lyrics seem to slip. WATCH THE REVIEW
Having read of George Lewis Jr.'s sophomore Twin Shadow full-length Confess as being something of a dashboard banger burning tyre as it rides alongside Cliff Martinez' Drive soundtracking, it wasn't a record I felt particularly compelled to clamber aboard. Forget had a simple charm to it and indeed this time around Lewis Jr. rewires things quite substantially to comprise the shiny, shiny production values and extravagant bombast such a parallel may gear up. But change should be embraced, encouraged and above all admired, and from first exposure Confess may be [...]
Por Judith Gómez Machado En febrero de este año el músico estadounidense George Lewis Jr. , más conocido como Twin Shadow , anunció el lanzamiento de su segundo disco Confess como “su próximo gran paso” . La edición de su debut Forget en 2010, producido por Chris Taylor de Grizzly Bear e incluido en la lista de los 50 mejores discos de ese año según Pitchfork , lo hizo vivir los excesos [...]
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