Mirror Image “Unweighted Burden / Constraints”

19 Dec 2012 — Henning Lahmann

So in case you're an artist and were wondering what might be a good strategy to make yourself heard when submitting music, here's a hint, listing Andy Stott, Vessel, Chopin, Jan Jelinek, and Tchaikovsky as inspirations is not the worst idea. In fact, we will always listen to something that refers to Chopin and/or Jan Jelinek. So in this sense, the hitherto completely unknown duo Mirror Image did everything right last night (there were a few more noteworthy references, but we'll leave it at that for now). But more importantly, what we have here goes beyond cheap name-dropping. The first two tracks that were put up on the duo's Soundcloud, "Unweighted Burden" and "Constraints", show more than just potential. It's not that the general formula doesn't sound familiar: dark and unsettling synth patterns that are fragmented by brittly structured, restrained beats, some ingredients borrowed from noise and a few disturbing vocal samples - but the results are nonetheless very intriguing. In particular "Constraints" is an excellent piece of wintry ambience that at times even hints at some Ben Frost influences, we'd like to say, and those transversal 'strings' and subtly interwoven guitar parts are superb. Not sure if we can pinpoint Tchaikovsky, but a good deal of Chopin-esque Polish Romanticism can definitely be identified, with whom Mirror Image share the place of birth. Not much else is known about the duo apart from the fact that they happen to be identical twins; hence the name, duh. Listen to both tracks below. Hope there's more to follow soon.