Elk Darling @ Farm House Collective in Riverside

About the artist

Twin Shadow is the nom de plume of Dominican-born George Lewis Jr. The troubled son of a hairdresser and a “teacher who lived many lives” (semi-professional football, massage therapy, film maker), his formative years were spent in suburban Florida. It was there that George made he first forays into music, experimenting with sound from the age of 14. He’s not looked back since. Escaping the palm trees and still heat of the Sunshine State, George travelled north to New York where he began writing debut album Forget over a series of months in his Brooklyn apartment. Inevitably, his nomadic impulses meant that the sound of Twin Shadow wasn’t to remain tied to the Big Apple. Drawing inspiration from extended trips abroad to Copenhagen and Berlin, and a distinctly European sensibility that takes in Can, Bowie and a classic pop melodicism, Twin Shadow has proven broad in scope and enterprise. As such, debut album Forget offers a panoramic view of a musical landscape that spans decades. Veering from the full-throttle power ballad ‘Slow’ to the shimmering Niles Rodgers-tinged disco of ‘At My Heels’ and the new wave synthesized breaks of ‘Castles In the Snow’, Forget speaks of a carnivorous musical mind not afraid to venture down unknown paths. It was venturing down these paths that led Twin Shadow to the attention of Grizzly Bear’s Chris Taylor in 2009. Impressed by the ambition of the music, Taylor not only lent his skills to the project by co-producing the record, but also offered to release Forget in the US on his newly established label, Terrible Records. Soon after, Twin Shadow signed to 4AD for the rest of the world, a deal George sees as allowing him to “share his music through his dream label”.

Lineup

• Twin Shadow · headliner
• Elk Darling