School Of Seven Bells – Alpinisms

Identical twins Alejandra and Claudia Deheza first met Benjamin Curtis when their respective bands (On!Air!Library! and Secret Machines) supported Interpol in New York in 2004. A series of collaborations followed until 2007, when Curtis left his other band to concentrate on School of Seven Bells. The Deheza sisters did the same and all three moved in together to build a home studio and start work on what became Alpinisms.Apparently named after a mythical South American school for pickpockets, the band has certainly been light fingered with its influences. Taking in everything from Harold Budd, My Bloody Valentine and Fuck Buttons to the Cocteau Twins, whose Robin Guthrie provided a remix for early single ‘My Cabal’, the album closer. Yet Alpinisms is really far more than the sum of it’s parts. Vocal and instrumental layer and intertwine, electronics burble and sweep, occasionally pulsing into life before flickering out again before another takes it’s place. There’s even an almost madrigal quality to the blissed out krautpop centrepiece of 'Sempiternal/ Amaranth'. 'For Karlaja Mari' is a dream-pop lullaby, introduced with electro flickers and synths before echoing guitar shreds in the background before repeating the phrase ‘there’s no need for anxiousness’.While it could easily come across as dry or detached, the Deheza Twins joint vocals provide a warmth which, when coupled with a pop sensibility, moves School of Seven Bells to the next level in the current crop of shoegaze influenced acts. Nowhere is this pop sensibility more ably demonstrated than on 'Wired For Light'. The Deheza’s harmonizing together over a churning beat and eastern influences which turn in the kind of record Madonna would be making if she still really had her fingers on the pulse of today’s music scene - rather than on an underwear model half her age.Whilst their oh-so 2009 sound is immediately likeable, Alpinism matures with further listens, and while it occasionally misses the mark (the likes of ‘Prince Charming’ veers slightly too close to Deep Forest territory in places), it isn’t to wild a stretch of the imagination to suggest that it may become one of the sleeper hits of 2009. 78%School Of Seven Bells on MySpace