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Let’s Eat Grandma – I, Gemini

  • Written by  Rosie Duffield

With a name like Let’s Eat Grandma, I had high hopes for their debut I, Gemini. The duo doing the eating are Rosa and Jenny, 16 and 17 respectively, and it’s slightly depressing to learn that they recorded most of this album while they were 15 (at the same age, I was making music in a far less cool way with the county orchestra).

The girls have known each other since they were little, and their music displays that intimacy you have with someone you’ve known a long time. It’s quirky, it pokes fun at almost everything, and frankly, it’s a bit weird. All in all, it seems like a bit of an in-joke.

I, Gemini is an explosion for the ears, moving – not always seamlessly – from one genre to another, more often than not within one song. Rosa and Jenny play an impressive array of instruments from keys to cellos, and they also seem to have a bit of a penchant for the recorder. Oddly, it works.

The album opens with ‘Deep Six Textbook’, a slow burner that’s surprisingly moody for a first track. There are some nice vocal harmonies – they’re rather high-pitched so you’ll either love them or hate them – and at times Let’s Eat Grandma sound similar to Summer Camp, or even CHVRCHES.

Then the fun begins. ‘Eat Shiitake Mushrooms’ is a much lighter track. It’s got a dance feel to it, with big bass and equally big synths; the vocals kick in at around three minutes (half of the tracks on the album are five minutes or more) and after some breathy wailing a surprise rap takes place. ‘Sax in the City’ features some wonderfully experimental rhythms and an odd sax riff rumbles on underneath lyrics that include a warning to Let’s Eat Grandma’s peers: “Get off your device and concentrate / That car’s about to hit you.”

I was expecting something warm, happy and indulgent with ‘Chocolate Sludge Cake’ – well that’s how chocolate cake normally makes me feel. What you get is a whimsical song about making a variety of different flavoured cakes – ingredients include loud synths, some desperate sounding vocals (well, who wouldn’t be desperate for cake?), and some thrashy drums. In contrast, ‘Chimpanzees in Canopies’ is a largely string-based affair and sounds completely different to what’s come before; it’s rather folky, and if I dare, a little country.

One of the highlights of the album has to be ‘Rapunzel’, a beautifully composed track that starts off sounding like one of those jewellery boxes where a ballerina rotates to a plinky-plonky tune when you open it. Just as you start enjoying that, the music morphs into a Chinese-influenced melody – all quite genteel until the girls start singing. “My cat is dead,” they wail, “My father hit me / I ran away / I’m really hungry.” It’s their disjointed, warped version of a fairy-tale and just as you’re getting your head round it all it ends rather abruptly.

The other standout is ‘Welcome to the Treehouse Part II’, a fuller extension of ‘Welcome… Part I’. There’s a great percussive section, and it’s very easy to imagine this going down well in a warehouse full of neon-clad revellers.

I, Gemini is a great introduction to Let’s Eat Grandma. On first listen, it’s a mishmash of, well, noise (particularly on the ironically named ‘Sleep Song’) – but on closer inspection it’s an album full of fun. The duo took their GCSEs last year, and I can’t help but feel that some of these tracks might have been composed for their music coursework; they’re incredibly creative, but also quite rudimentary in parts. Clashing chords and ridiculous lyrics sit amongst some quite inspired moments of musicality.

Jenny and Rosa have said, “it’s hilarious when people don’t get [our music]” and, “The whole album is almost taking the piss out of popular music.” So for all their in-jokes and childlike weirdness, it seems that if you don’t like I, Gemini, the joke’s on you.

I, Gemini is available from iTunes and Amazon.

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