Goths get married and even go out dancing, too
Ghost Twin is certainly bleak and a bit industrial, but not without a sense of humour
What’s the deal? Two common misconceptions about those who identify as Goths are that: 1) they are morose loners who enjoy little but the well-thumbed works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, an album or three by Bauhaus or Fields of the Nephilim and never-ending dreams of the grave for company; and 2) they lack a sense of humour.
Winnipeg duo Ghost Twin defies both of these stereotypes, since Jaimz and Karen Asmundson have been a happily married couple for more a decade and only began making music together in earnest after having rather a lot of fun collaborating on the soundtrack to filmmaker-by-trade Jaimz’s thoroughly goofy 2009 short film, Goths! On the Bus!
That doesn’t mean that the pair isn’t habitually drawn to dark-’n’-doomy synth-pop dredged up from the same chilly catacombs from whence the likes of the Neon Judgement, Cabaret Voltaire, Skinny Puppy and Trent Reznor once lurched.
However, the Asmundsons aren’t so serious about their musical exploration of “sleep paralysis, haunted houses, Ouija boards and the Tunnels of Set” — and other “esoteric ideas” recently itemized by Karen to the Label Obscura zine — that their forthcoming debut LP, Plastic Heart, can’t occasionally leaven the dirty death-disco grind with a winking title like “Electro Hirsute.”
A The duo enlisted Maya “Princess Century” Postepski, who has done time with both of those acts, to produce the new album.
Sum up what you do in a few simple sentences. “We enjoy spending time together — possibly an odd thing for a married couple — so we created Ghost Twin, which has seemingly taken over our lives. We write dancey-yet-bleak, synth-heavy songs about our personal experiences with death, despair and the supernatural, typically in minor keys with industrial sounds, as that’s the music our ‘inner Goths’ demand. Our live performances are like an immersive séance in which everyone participates: A dynamic and shadowy atmosphere of rhythm and light in which to let loose, be possessed and get absorbed in our ritual.”
What’s a song I need to hear right now? “Plastic Heart.” Windblown Kate Bush theatrics set to a Pretty Hate Machine- era Nine Inch Nails stomp, with a melodic nod to Derrick May’s “Strings of Life” that one hopes is slyly intentional.
Where can I see them play? At Handlebar on Saturday with Zoo Owl, Plazas and Loji.