Hailing from The Catskills, cosmic folk and avant pop collective Two Dark Birds are keenly interested in how best to unmoor themselves from any given musical antecedents. They conspire to create a bit of rural theatricality which doesn’t succumb to twangy opulence or melodic banality. Listening to their work is akin to wandering through a fog-draped forest, feeling the light touch of nature with every step and finding truly miraculous things in the places that others fail to notice. They’ve developed a sort of kaleidoscopic dialogue among themselves, a rhythmic grammar that informs and directs their arcadian experiments.
Led by songwriter Steve Koester, the band has released four albums – not including their 2022 Porous EP – since 2008. During that time, Koester has also found time to write, record and produce a wide range of music for film and TV, including songs for Sideny Lumet’s “Before the Devil Knows Your Dead” and Laurie Collyer’s “Sherrybaby.” The band also consists of Josh Roy Brown (lap steel), Tyler Wood (keys), Mark Lerner (bass), and Iris Clementine (vocals), a group of likeminded individuals whose communal creativities support each other in a perfectly expanding spiral.
Their forthcoming album, Dreamers of the Golden Dream, will find them further loosening the genre associations of their previous releases. The band’s new single, “Pink Light”, is a perfect example of this creative fluidity, as it blends art pop electronics with indie rock determination: imagine Bryan Ferry fronting Cut Copy with a bit of Talking Heads thrown in for good measure. It develops a kinetic language that is effortlessly experienced but is difficult to fully master. And despite the allusions to other artists, it truly does feel like a singular expression of their combined imaginations.
“Lyrically, the song explores a moment when the mundane and the infinite intersect,” Koester explains.
Listen to the song below.
Dreamers of the Golden Dream is due out this summer on Vfib Recordings. You can follow the band on Facebook and Instagram.
