Twin Shadow – Forget
Make no mistake, 4AD has a new crop of talent in 2010, and, along with Ariel Pink and his recent makeover, Dominican-born George Lewis Jr , aka Twin Shadow , is at the forefront of this group. Migrating from Florida to Brooklyn, gaining spit and polish production from Grizzly Bear ‘s Chris Taylor on its way, Forget is a collection of bedroom (read apartment) recordings, which range from mournful disco to soulful new-wave.
Finding solace in the deadpan simplicity of Casiotone For The Painfully Alone , Lewis Jr’s synths are sleek and sleazy, his delivery wistful, the end product quite remarkable. Deftly avoiding gimmicks, Forget rarely puts a foot wrong. The opener, “Tyrant Destroyed” pops with languid appeal drawing back the curtain on the nostalgic retro-futurism of planet Twin Shadow.
Pleasingly, Lewis Jr’s lyrics are more than passengers, and on “I Can’t Wait” his breathy “I don’t wanna believe, or be, in love” sounds like he truly means it. The assured swishes and funky bass guitar on “Shooting Holes” head the track straight for the Italo-dancefloor, yet Lewis Jr has darker locales in mind as he spoils the party atmosphere with a vocal exercise in disinterest similar to David Byrne ‘s turn in X-Press 2 ‘s “Lazy”. Whereas “At My Heels”, though a smidgen less theatrical, recalls Wild Beasts if they were invited to DJ the same David Byrne’s own birthday bash.
Latterly, the hi-hats and handclaps of “Castles In The Snow” are a real highlight, and the title track’s ominous bass crunches even veer Forget towards The Knife ‘s version of “Heartbeats”, if it were filtered through a decade of neglect and given a quick bleaching.
Though probably product of nostalgia, Forget is a strange name for an a debut of such confidence and substance – for it’s the last thing we’d do on this kind of form.
Advised downloads : “Castles In The Snow” and Tyrant Destroyed“.
~Forget is released outside of the US on the 15th November 2010 on 4AD .~