Psychic Twin
Strange Diary
Reviewed by: Max Miller
When music critics write about synthesizers, we tend to describe their sound as “icy.” There’s just something about the immaculate textures one can coax from a synth that often leaves the listener with a glimmering, crystalline synaesthetic sensation. Of course, these cold sounds can be used to make pop music that feels warm and summery. Only sometimes do these synth textures pair with music meant to evoke such bitter, wintry moods. On Strange Diary, the debut album from Brooklyn’s Psychic Twin, bone-chilling synths set the stage for a heartbroken narrative that’s as bleak and gray as a late November morning.
Psychic Twin is the project of Erin Fein, who wrote the songs that would appear on Strange Diary over the course of four years. Her journey began in Champaign-Urbana, IL, where she started composing these songs as her marriage unraveled. After her divorce, she moved to Brooklyn and continued writing new material for Psychic Twin and polishing what she had already. With producer Jacob Portrait, she constructed Strange Diary, which serves as a pristine portrait of the loneliness and confusion brought on from the tumultuous years surrounding its creation.
“Strangers” glides along on a series of propulsive, twinkling arpeggios, as Fein sings, “We don’t need to speak the same language / We just need to see each other’s hearts / ‘Cause even though we try, it’s like we’re strangers / And I don’t want to waste our time apart.” The thrumming synth-bass and ethereal backing vocals on “Running In The Dark” recall the grand centerpieces of Grimes’ breakthrough Visions. Psychic Twin’s live show now includes drummer Rosana Caban, but the beats that drive cuts like “Stop In Time” and “Chase You” are stark, almost gothic drum machine patterns, which give Strange Diary a slight retro feel while also underscoring the feelings of alienation Fein conveys with her lyrics.
We always picture our lives as having some degree of stability, when in reality they’re often a series of all-too-short periods between having the existential rug pulled out from beneath our feet. We try to pick up the pieces and move forward, but as Fein sings on compelling single “Lose Myself,” “When I go farther, I lose myself.” But there are some — namely those nutty outdoorsy types who feel invigorated when they step outside in 20 degree weather on one of those bleak, gray November mornings — who would say that it’s those uncertain moments that remind us we’re alive at all. I don’t know what Erin Fein would say about all that, but on her debut as Psychic Twin she proves that regardless of whether the journey or the destination is the true reward, she’s going to power through and go the full distance.
Rating: Listenable
