The New York-based brother-duo The Lemon Twigs have released their fourth full-length LP Everything Harmony via Captured Tracks. Promotional singles include " Corner Of My Eye", "In My Head", "Everyday Is The Worst Day Of My Life", and "Any Time Of Day".
On Everything Harmony, the prodigiously talented brothers Brian and Michael D’Addario offer 13 original servings of beauty that showcase an emotional depth and musical sophistication far beyond their years as a band, let alone as young men. While they eagerly devour musical influences from everything and everywhere, they have somehow arrived at a cohesive and dynamic sound that speaks to our troubled times.
On Everything Harmony, the brothers have fully realized that vision, with a unified “Lemon Twigs sound” that successfully blends their distinct personalities while giving voice to their diverse and eclectic influences. Opening the album with the unassuming acoustic folk of plaintive “When Winter Comes Around,” which echo the sophisticated grandeur of classic Simon & Garfunkel recordings, they immediately switch things up to the sunny classic pop motif of “In My Head.” From that point on, the band makes it clear that the band can't be pinned down.
The new album was mostly written and recorded between 2020 and 2021, when tracking for the album began at a “very chaotic” rehearsal studio in Manhattan. “It was one of the noisiest places I’ve ever been,” says Brian. “We did takes of acoustic guitar in between metal bands rehearsing next door and fire engines roaring down 8th Avenue. After months of sessions there, where we recorded the basic tracks to Corner Of My Eye, In My Head, I Don’t Belong To Me, What Happens To A Heart, Ghost Run Free and New To Me, we decided enough was enough and we looked into studios that had acoustic echo chambers after hearing East West’s chambers during the recording of Weyes Blood’s latest record.”
“The album cycles through moments of depression and isolation on songs like What Happens To A Heart, or Born To Be Lonely to episodes of dizzying euphoria in Ghost Run Free or the title track. There’s very little middle ground. On What Happens to A Heart we were going for a ’70s Spector vibe, along the lines of Leonard Cohen’s Death Of A Ladies Man. We tracked it with me on piano, Daryl Johns on electric bass and Michael and Andres Valbuena both playing drums. I overdubbed a fretless bass. Two pianos, two organs, harpsichord, and celeste. The basic track was done in New York, and strings and French horn recorded in San Francisco. We got the Friction Quartet to overdub themselves about eight times to get a more symphonic sound. We also recorded about eight acoustics and bounced them down to two tracks; we did the same with the electric guitars.”
Everything Harmony is a song cycle born of shared blood and common purpose. With two musical heads being better than one, there’s no shortage of ideas to draw on. Their only impediments are time and the challenge of keeping up with their own prolific musical inspiration. “We share an intuition and tend to be influenced by one another,” says Brian, “so the lyrical ideas on this record tend to complement each other. Writing has never been an issue for us. It’s completing, editing and compiling that takes time. We’re trapped in a web of songs!”
Listen to The Lemon Twigs' music, order Everything Harmony + keep up with them below!
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