Ghost Bees - New Waves @ Breaking More Waves

Ghost Bees can give an interesting answer to the question “Where did you meet?” For they first encountered each others presence in the womb. Yet thankfully these two Canadian twins are very different from X Factor duplicate-mentalists Jedward. For Romi and Sari Lightman have a sound and character more akin to the medieval plucking and plinking sounds of Joanna Newsom and the delicious oddness of CocoRosie, than any Simon Cowell approved 'artist'. They do however share a sense of Jedward wackiness with their Myspace suggesting that they sound like “slicing a grapefruit and really long hair that sways from side to side.”

Ghost Bees have already released a seven track mini album entitled Tasseomancy way back in 2008 (yes not every blog can be there from day one) and in 2009 toured with Timber Timbre in Canada. Tasseomancy has a sound that sits firmly within the alt.folk category, using instrumentation such as antique mandolin, glockenspiel, viola and guitar to create wonderful but eccentric songs. The band suggest that their style is inspired by Eastern European folk music and this can be heard in their tune Sinai which takes references from Greek mythology. It names Tiresias, the clairvoyant blind prophet who was transformed into a woman for seven years in amongst a tale of birth from “Mothers bruised bloodroot thighs.” Another song, Vampires of the West Coast, reveals a disturbing gothic lyrical quality where the twins sing of a “Beautiful body of mortar and bile, with lovely grey eyelids that long to retire.” Its certainly not easy listening, but then there is no need to apologise for that.

Given that Romi and Sari are twins, it comes as no surprise to find that their harmonies are completely matched. Sometimes it seems that you are simply listening to one multi-tracked voice. Ghost Bees are strangely enchanting and yet slightly disturbing. The term freak-folk has never found a better place to be used than with Ghost Bees.