As teenagers, the New York brothers swiftly rose to become retro pop darlings – until they weren’t. Now older, wiser and taking inspiration from the travails of their family, they’re making their best music yet
It’s a golden age for the period piece: One Day’s gauzy revisit of the 90s, Stranger Things’ endless referencing of 80s ephemera, and even My Brilliant Friend’s sun-bathed vision of turbulent postwar Italy offering respite from a news cycle of bloodshed and trauma. The 60s pop confections on the new album by New York duo the Lemon Twigs – two brothers who are deep in one of the great songwriting grooves of the 21st century – also fit this trend. But while A Dream Is All We Know magically transports the listener to the idyll of Abbey Road studios in 1966, Brian and Michael D’Addario are reluctant to write off their project as nostalgic escapism.
“Yes, we record on analogue tape, and we don’t think being on phones all day is a good way to live our lives,” sighs Michael at their Brooklyn studio. “But it’s not like we’re rejecting ‘contemporary life’. And I don’t know what we’re really excluding from our lives by not using social media or recording on Pro Tools, anyway. Who wants to stare at a computer when they’re doing something that’s supposed to be fun?”
