Photo Credit: Alexa Viscius
Today Nashville-via-Boston DIY scene duo Twen share a new single. The celestial and angular epic, “Baptism,” out today, is taken from their forthcoming album, Awestruck. On this track, which the band has played live for over three years now, Jane Fitzsimmons’ impressionistic lyrics dream of yearning, of wanting to be born and becoming, while guitarist Ian Jones embodies time itself by revisiting a riff written as a teenager, reworked with fresh perspective. Listen to the song exclusively on Billboard HERE.
Twen recently wrapped a U.S. tour with White Reaper, and announced a European tour this Fall in support of Tacocat. Today, the band announces a run of U.S. shows with The Dodos, as well as a hometown album release show for Awestruck at The Basement in Nashville. Find a show near you and get your tickets HERE. Check out the band’s Audiotree session to get a sense of their live show HERE.
Twen came up in the Boston DIY punk scene, kicking off two straight years of touring in 2017 with nothing but a live EP from the band’s first-ever performance. Now based in Nashville, Twen announce their explosive debut album Awestruck. Featuring their first three studio singles – their debut studio single “Waste,” lead album single “Damsel” and “Holy River.”
Awestruck is a time capsule two years in the making and recorded in different locations along the way. Though unabashedly indie rock, Twen’s songs genre-bend from shoe-gaze-sized walls of sound to Beatle-esque call-and-response harmonies, while frontperson Jane Fitzsimmons’ voice weaves through guitarist Ian Jones’ guitar lines with Cocteau Twin’s inspired flair, giving breath of ethereal mysticism across the album. Awestruck will be out on September 20th via Frenchkiss – pre-order HERE.
What’s a touring band without a record? For the past two years, Twen – led by Jane Fitzsimmons and guitarist Ian Jones – has been re-defining what a touring band looks like in an age of homogeneous pop crafted for streaming consumption, touring endlessly and perfecting a raw and mesmerizing live show without a proper release in tow. With DIY at the core of the band’s ethos, the two Twen masterminds have run Airbnbs while touring, played in exchange for skydiving, screen printed self-designed merch items by hand, and booked their own tours.
Disregarding music industry order-of-operations, Twen defied the mold through their Twen Live cassette release in 2017. Recorded from their first performance (ever) in a Boston basement, the 5-song EP is their only recorded music prior to their upcoming debut release.
Twen’s years-in-the-making live performance is built upon a classic rock setup of vocals, guitar, bass, and drums. With the foundation of Jones and Fitzsimmons, the band has cycled through rhythm players; often to keep up with their packed schedule. Life on the road is hard to maintain, especially when the only mechanism for spreading your music time-warps to an archaic traveling band.
Despite the band’s strange start, promise grows with each step Twen takes. The freedom and chaos brought on by their nomadic roots leaks into their live performance, only to saturate further with time. With touring now defining how a rock band can earn keep in 2019, Twen represents a refreshing antidote in an increasingly digital world. Awestruck serves as their digital flag, a compressed promise of the joyous energy that awaits in their tours and records to come.