NOISEY 122: TWIN SISTER

Twin Sister recorded their first album in the Hamptons. Before you start imagining lazy rich kids cavorting in the sun, consider that the band rented a house there during the winter. "While the experience was fulfilling and wonderful in many ways, the emptiness was also devastatingly isolating at times," a post on the Twin Sister blog read. The account perfectly sums up the Long Island quintet's aesthetic. Listening to their songs is like being bummed out at a party; you're dancing, drinking, chatting, but inside, you're somewhere else.

Twin Sister had this in-between mood nailed from the start. Guitarist-singer Eric Cardona and front woman Andrea Estella met as teens, each working with different bands on the Long Island scene. Twin Sister formed in 2008. The EP they issued that year, Vampires with Dreaming Kids, is almost shockingly patient. Songs like "Nectarine" and "I Want a House" float along in a haze of retro textures (twangy slide guitar, tambourine jangles, generous reverb), taking their sweet time to build and stealthily overwhelming you with a sensation that's strangely remote.

2011's In Heaven was the product of that "devastatingly isolating" retreat. Estella soars on "Kimmi in a Rice Field," as the rest of the band (Cardona, keyboardist Ubdhav "Dev" Gupta, bassist Gabe D'Amico and drummer Bryan Ujueta) envelops her in synthed-out, neo–Fleetwood Mac bliss. The group flirts with kitsch but achieves an exquisite fusion of R&B and indie-pop sensibilities. As you listen, it's not hard to imagine them holed up in that Hamptons house, battling the loneliness but also having the courage to embrace it.