Album Review: Ookii Gekkou by Vanishing Twin

Reverently synthesizing Can's left-field funk, Piero Umiliani's lush spectral pop, and the deep-space jazz of Sun Ra, Vanishing Twin transmit from a dimension where big-tent optimism is the law of the land. Released with eerie prescience less than a year before a pandemic catapulted both public health and public indifference into the global consciousness, the band's last album, The Age of Immunology, painted the London collective as a troupe of psychedelic dreamers without a drop of cynicism between them. Though their wistful collages occasionally stray into darker territory--see the brooding ecological warning on The Age of Immunology standout "You Are Not an Island"--it's buoyed by an unshakeable belief in a future just beginning to reveal itself.

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Ookii Gekkou by Vanishing Twin Retro futurist music employs vintage sounds to evoke a science-fiction feel that may have seemed far-flung and exotic in decades past, but now feels quaint and strangely soothing. Hence the appeal of bands such as Stereolab and Broadcast, who have come to be referenced as a shorthand for a specific flavor of retro futurist music that employs female vocals, eerie synth sounds, and a driving rhythm section. It's repetitive but melodic, familiar but otherworldly, counterbalancing dark analog timbres with sing-song sweetness.

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