SHE TALKS SILENCE HOLY HANDS, HOLY VOICES

Here is some music from Japan. It comes more specifically from Tokyo, in the form of female duo She Talks Silence, which is made up of Minami, who takes care of the guitar and vocals, and Ami, who takes care of the drums.

I'm always pleasantly surprised by-- well, actually I'd revise that and say I am pleasantly surprised most of the time when it comes to band duos. They can make a lot of noise, just as much noise as a band with more people in it. I guess it doesn't really matter how many people are in a band does it?

I apologise for my babble. This is about a song from She Talks Silence called 'Holy Hands, Holy Voices' - it's like 3 months old but that doesn't matter because it'll most likely be new to you. I can't remember where I found them - I think it was actually this live performance of them covering the song 'Just Like Honey' originally by The Jesus and Mary Chain (1985). And I think that says a lot about them and their sound: shoegaze, 80s guitar music, Madchester - this kind of thing seems to be quite aspirational in Japan at the moment. Not surprised because it's a great sound.

The production is lovely, allowing a retro vibe to seep through whilst modern technology captures the rich and gutsy distortion of the guitar and the old-school sound of the drums, each snare having this lovely far-off splashing sound. The vocals are lost like scented smoke in the midst of an urban labyrinth, almost drowned by the thumping power of the gloriously overdriven guitar. A light synth melody gently caresses the surface of the guitar's wall of noise, adding a mellow variation to the crunching chords, as support vocals nonchalantly add their "ooo-ooo-ooo" to the medley.

Despite being beset with a wonderfully heavy-handed loudness - supported by booming drum machine foundations thanks to Ami - the song presents a simple beauty in its chord progressions and the plaintive singing of Minami. It sounds aggressive, noisy, unforgiving, but underneath that it is soft and mellow - you could almost say chilled. Perhaps this is down to the well-produced lo-fi sound; it sounds like a contradiction, but if you've listened to the song you'll know it's not.

Looking forward to new things from She Talks Silence!

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