Venus Twins
/\/\/\/\/
THREE ONE G
Venus Twins raise a curious question with their new 13-minute EP: Can identical twins be so mentally conjoined that they don’t even have to speak to each other to communicate? Jake and Matt Derting have made no secret of their conviction that “twin telepathy” does exist—and God only knows what secrets they do keep, because there’s no way we’d ever find out. And that could explain why they made a short-player that’s so damn short: because they can use their cerebral connective abilities to fill in everything that’s missing. But here’s maybe the most vexing question of all: If the point of making art is for the artist to communicate a message to an audience, thus building a human and even existential connection during their time on this mortal coil, why bother to make art at all if you have an audience who understands you in your head at all times?
Sorry, for a second there I mistook this space as a forum for feeble-minded attempts at bullshitting about psychology or philosophy. Let’s start over: Venus Twins started in Texas, then moved to Brooklyn (you know, where having a band makes more sense) and have put out an LP, a couple EPs, and some singles prior to this release. The band wants you to pronounce the title of their new EP, /\/\/\/\/, as “stitching” (although, when italicized, it looks like at least two Simpsons’ haircuts). And “stitching” is relevant because the brother who sings and plays bass, Matt, also has a knack for sewing—which is relevant here because crafting textiles and creating the type of whiplash-inducing, eardrum-destroying aural assaults like the ones captured here couldn’t appear to be more at odds. Can you imagine Agoraphobic Nosebleed practicing hot yoga? Or the members of The Locust—one of whom runs the record label that released /\/\/\/\/—playing bingo? You get the idea.
The appeal of listening to these five pastiches of atonal noise, which are for all intents and purposes designed so that they’re impossible to dance or even tap your foot to, are the brief moments of clarity brought into sharp relief by the raucous landscape from which they emanate—like the brief moments of respite at the end of “God Help Me Bury This Fucking Light,” or the Hella-good drumming throughout “Stitching,” or the climax-within-the-climax on the last track, “It Can’t End Like This,” which ranks about as high as you can get on the Richter scale of deafening noise. A Victorian child would pray to hear Slayer instead of this. If the thought of that makes you smirk, then by all means give this a whirl.
