Goddammit this was the sexiest show ever. Like, purchase if I had a significant other, generic or let’s say like a fuck buddy or something, seek and for some reason I decided it’d be cool to invite her to an Antlers show- what would otherwise be a preferred singular experience- and we were there together listening to the funky collective that is Mr. Twin Sister (say it, Mister Twin Sister Mister Twin Sister Mister Twin Sister), and then we had our souls melted by the beauty that is a live Antlers show- the first show of the Familiars tour, nonetheless- well, let’s say that if the above mentioned were the circumstances of last night, then said fuck buddy and I, we would have ceased being fuck buddies, at least for one night, because the sounds coming out of the Sinclair speakers were so friggin romantic that when we got back to my place I would have been all like, shhhhh, don’t speak, we’re not simply fucking tonight, oh no, just summon that fucking music, and we would have melted into each other, like that trippy scene from the “Mind Mischief” video by Tame Impala where the young boarding school boy literally melts into his hot teacher, and such is the tangent my mind went on while listening to the sonic ecstasy that was Mr. Twin Sister and The Antlers at the Sinclair on Wednesday, June 25th 2014.Mr. Twin Sister, formerly just Twin Sister, are an indie-pop band from New York with a distinct sound, I know so because someone in the crowd said, “Wow, they’ve really got their own sound.” You can listen to their stuff on the Mr. Twin Sister website, like I did before the show, and get a good sense of their funkiness (their lead vocalist, sans instrument, did a great job showing how one should slide and groove ones body while listening, she did this in what I am pretty sure was a kimono) but nothing can prepare you for how raw their collaboration of synth, keyboard, guitar, drums, bongo, sax, and vocals sound live- its just plain fun, and sexy, did I mention that the show was sexy? Collaboration was pretty key to their success, having two keyboards and two drums and two vocalists allowed for really creative nuances in song structure, lots of value added, particularly when the guitarist/saxophonist/vocalist made his presence known, which was early and often. His versatility, and the talents of the band altogether, took their indie-pop collectivism from simple novelty- oh sick! a saxophone, or, no way, mutha fuckin bongos!- to a level of clear artistry; Mr. Twin Sister are fun and groovy and fun and sexy and talented.
As excellent as Mr. Twin Sister was, their opening set could not match the pure, minimalist beauty of The Antlers. I suppose this is a self fulfilling statement, as we are, after all, talking about an Antlers concert, or, a get together of The Antlers cult, or, a fan base obsessed with the beauty of the overwhelmingly sad. Needless to say, The Antlers do produce wonderfully sad music, and they do sound even better live. Their recorded work is extremely well produced, but actually seeing the musicians piece together and diverge on the themes of their songs, and hearing the precise, consistent- fuck it- straight angelic vocal work of frontman Peter Silberman, well, it makes you want to close your eyes and really get caught up in the mysterious, searching space evoked by their sound; yes, my eyes were closed for much of the show, and yes, I loved it. Many fans aren’t as thrilled with Familiars as they were with releases Hospice and Bursting Apart, and, to be fair, there are some songs on Familiars that blend together a bit more than you’d like. However, songs like “Hotel” and “Palace” are memorable, and require a slow, sensuous (I mean sexy) rambling that resembles the brilliance of the tracks on their EP, Undersea. And anyway, The Antlers played a crowd-pleasing set, dropping “Kettering”, “Sylvia” and, “Endless Ladder” into the mix early on. The crowning moment of the night had to be their encore, two bonuses from Burst Apart: “Hounds”, followed by the gut -wrenchingly human, “Putting the Dog to Sleep”. They were all like, “prove to me” -chord!- “I’m not gonna die alone” -chord!- And I was all like, yes, I love you Antlers, I fuckin love you. I guess you could say I’m a member of the cult, and I guess you can go fuck yourself if you don’t think The Antlers are beautiful. Oh, and Mr. Twin Sister are sexy and groovy. Oh, and together they made everyone’s night.
