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Nov 09, 2011 Issue #38 - 10th Anniversary Issue By Laura Studarus

Zambri (sisters Cristi Jo and Jessica Zambri) doesn’t speak in tongues, but they do twist synths, drum machines, industrial crashes, and their ethereal voices into a fevered cloud. Their music is a ghostly dialect somewhere between Fever Ray’s foreboding and Cocteau Twins otherworldly abstraction—splitting the difference between pop and sound art.

It’s not so much that Zambri piles on the layers—but how masterfully they manipulate them. Skirting excess, the duo weaves together contrasting elements into complex quilts of sound. The Kate Bush-style vocal refrain of “To Keep Back” is paired with a twisted, seasick synth—echoing like a half-recalled dream. 1980s-referencing tune “Heather” plays more like an homage to The Shining than a Winona Ryder teen flick—complete with a haunted children’s choir. “News” does Animal Collective one better, rejuvenating the now-tired tribal trope with a sea of distortion and a vocal performance so theatrical it should be delivered in war paint. Like similarly powerful songstress Glasser, the sisters close out their EP in a circular fashion, repeating the same themes of “On Call” in “On Call (biddibiddi).” The stripped down version—complete with a gibbish-laden refrain—proves that no matter what language the sisters are speaking; their message is one of unmistakable beauty. (www.zambri.net)

Author rating: 7/10