Twin Within consists of Steve McKay and Alex Samaras. McKay mainly known as the percussive force behind Bruce Peninsula, collaborator of Timber Timbre, and songwriting partner of Allie X. Samaras’s background is in Tuvan throat singing and working in countless vocal ensembles, usually merging classic pop with classical sensibilities, in a uniquely modern way.
Together their voices have a natural affinity beyond technical ability, and recall classic duos like Righteous Brothers, Walker Brothers, or Simon & Garfunkel. Alex’s vocals enhance the arrangements with the same depth and originality that an Owen Pallet string arrangement would, augmenting Steve’s catchy, but intricate, Grizzly Bear like songwriting. An anti-throwback throwback.
Their debut record Horizontal Lines is out July 10th on Hidden Pony Records.
“Bernie” (above) comes from a place of discovery, with Steve McKay relaying, “Writing melodies and coming up with arrangements comes really easy to me, but writing lyrics is tough. When we were writing songs for this record, I was listening to a lot of Elton John and thinking about that whole Bernie Taupin lyricist-partner thing. It’s like it would be so much easier if somebody else would write the lyrics for me and I could just hammer out the hooks”. Describing the writing process, he continues, “We were going for a bit of a James Taylor vibe with the arrangement – it’s just an acoustic guitar, tic-tac bass, piano and floor tom. We specifically recorded this with a classical music engineer, Kirk Starkey, with the hope that he might pull a little more out of the acoustic instruments and the Church where we recorded. I think he did a pretty good job”.
Below is a live version of “Tunnel To The Resevoir” from the album.
