I, Gemini is the debut album from Rosa Walton and Jenny Hollingworth, A.K.A. Let’s Eat Grandma. Recorded in the former nuclear bunker turned analog paradise, Old School Studios in Norwich, under the watchful eye of Will Twynham (Hand Of Glory Records), I, Gemini will be released on 17th June 2016 via Transgressive.
Today, LEG share their new single, ‘Eat Shiitake Mushrooms’, with an impact date of 17th June. An organ, synth and glockenspiel bass-music-pop-banger complete with rap breakdown, ‘Eat Shiitake Mushrooms’ concerns itself with people’s ability to surpass expectations and surprise everyone.
As thick as thieves, as sharp as knives, as like-minded as twins, wildly imaginative multi-instrumentalists and talented putative pop stars Rosa, 16, and Jenny, 17, met aged four in their local infant school in Norwich and have been inseparable ever since.
Let’s Eat Grandma was formed in 2013 when Rosa was given a second hand acoustic guitar for her birthday and Jenny adopted a battered old ukulele. Influenced by playing jazz and classical music both in and out of school and their own desire to explode the pop formula, they started writing a series of uniquely structured compositions. On a month by month basis their repertoire of instruments expanded and expanded to include the saxophone, the piano, mandolin, drums, synthesizers, harmonica, recorders and whistles, even if their audience initially was only each other.
Their bewitching album not only features an epic centrepiece track called ‘Welcome To The Treehouse (I & II)’ but a drawing of one of their tree houses graces the cover art. The sleeve (“it’s designed to sum up our imaginary world”) also features the constellation Gemini in the night sky and the album title refers to the star sign - the sign for twins.
‘Deep Six Textbook’ – their debut single which has already caused a stir on the internet refers to the old maritime phrase meaning to throw something overboard and sets out LEG’s desire to throw the rulebook away. By their own standards the song is both lush and sepulchral and is intended to be the “calm before the storm” as the opening track. Chocolate Sludge Cake’ and ‘Chimpanzees In Canopies’ both relish in thrusting together seemingly incompatible genres such as R&B with cosmic synth psych; and stark minimalism with freak folk. They reclaim children’s fairy tales back from vacuous “Disneyfication” on ‘Rapunzel’, re-injecting the story with a dark sense of gothic unease. And ‘Sax In The City’ is a dystopian nightmare of people rendered robot slaves by smartphones and tablets - all the more striking for its jaunty lo-fi pop setting.
The name Let’s Eat Grandma was chosen in a rush the night before their first ever gig, from an old grammatical joke which highlights the usefulness of a well placed comma. The name is ideal for a band that can sound quite sweet and poppy on first listen but who also have deeper, darker undercurrents.
