The timing couldn’t have been better for me to listen to this album. After a long, and I mean LONG week at my advertising job, this was the reminder I needed to let go and release those feelings of burnout. It’s not easy to turn your brain off after a full week of mayhem, but Twin Court’s release was exactly the medicine I needed to zone out and recover.
Twin Court released their first album, “Forgotten Turns” earlier this month, and it blew me away in more ways than one. I’m the type of person that loves throwing on a sound bath video on YouTube or a “10 hours of relaxing mandolin” kind of video for when I’m writing, reading, or meditating. This album has that same kind of energy but mixed with progressive rock elements and introspective lyrics. Twin Court fell in love with using the Javanese gamelan and approached their song-making with open hearts and minds, letting the music flow from them, and it shows.
Directly from their artist submission, they say, “Our writing style became more and more collaborative until finally we just wrote in large group sessions.” In this album, you can absolutely feel the different energies separately, and they weave themselves together to create this harmonious ONE –Maybe this acts as an allegory for the collective human consciousness?
“Forgotten Turns” makes me yearn once again for the experience of playing music in a group of like-minded people…something I haven’t done in ten years. It’s an eye-opening, humbling, and life-altering experience to create something beautiful with other human beings.
The atmospheres that Twin Court creates with the many influences, instruments, and brains involved mesh together so perfectly that I crave so much more of their music. Also, the album art is incredibly unique and eye-catching –a perfect representation of this body of work.
Track five, Broken Strands, features some lyrics that really stick with me: “If the wind blew clouds astray / Would you find heaven in the rain? / Or would your words just wash away / And leave a silence in their place?”. In my own personal opinion, I really see this as the message of the album, though I 100% believe that art is completely up for interpretation.
As a final thought, I’ll let Twin Court explain their hopes for the album: “I hope that when you listen to Forgotten Turns you hear our baby steps into a new worldview. I hope you feel assured that you can think differently, you can live differently if you want to. I hope you can truly hear the voices of the many all around you. The crickets buzzing outside your window, the relaxed friends talking on the street, the painful voice inside of you that you try so hard to ignore. I hope one day we can see beyond. The world will be better for it.”
Stream “Forgotten Turns” now on Bandcamp, Apple Music, and Spotify!
Written by Newt Fangs
