Twells & Christensen - Coasts

"Coasts" has been a long time in the making. John Twells
(aka Xela) and Matt Christensen (of Zelienople) have
been collaborating in various forms for years, but this is
their first fully-realized work. The entire album was made
with vintage gear and recorded to 8-track during a
weekend in Chicago in 2008 and finally mixed at Twells'
Seventh Door Studio outside Boston. The resulting record
is a spectral odyssey in two parts. Darkened passages
shift and fall apart while keeping the piercing sun at bay.
Faint song structures lurk beneath the rolling black waves,
but only get an arm above the surface during those rare
moments of light.

Opening with "The Crate," immediately you are immersed
inside the belly of the whale as Twells siren call gets
trapped beneath Christensen's bleak guitar notes. It all
feels held together by the thinnest of threads. Rattling
tones crawl out from underneath swirls of electronics, like
barely-there points of reference in a white out. Lines are
crossed but blur together and everything ends up
sounding like desperate, beautiful collage of sound. It's all
a rouse, anyway, as you are tricked into a sense of calm
as the dying orchestral zones gently flame out.

"Burning Bridges Together" is your reward for buying in.
Crunching guitar chords bowl into you at full-force, moving
slow but piling on the pressure. Christensen belts out the
vocals this go round, getting buried underneath endless
washes of fuzz-soaked cacaphony. Tension rises to the
point of no return as they desperately search for a
breaking point. Things finally settle down and gently fade
into oblivion, Christensen's guitar providing the final
epitaph. In the end, the seamless nature of the
collaboration is what really leaves its mark.

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