• Tegan & Sara mesh pleasant voices, soulful lyrics
By Aaron Shakra
Freelance Reporter
Tegan & Sara are wonderful, beau
tiful, 23-year-old identical twin sisters
and musicians. Iheir third and latest
album, "If It
CD
review
Was You," has
recently been
re-released as
an enhanced _
CD with a
bonus track and video footage from
music videos and touring.
Ihe two sisters — who share the last
name Quin — recently played in Eu
gene, both at John I Ienr/s and CD
World. Ihe John I ferny's show, which
was incorrectly advertised for all ages,
had to turn away minors, who proceed
ed to dance, sing along and clap from
the sidewalk Inside, the two told hilari
ous stories throughout the conceit.
It will be difficult to discern be
tween the twins — who's singing,
writing and playing what — by mere
ly listening to the album. Both are
guitarists and write their lyrics sepa
rately, but everything is credited to
gether. At times, "If It Was You" is
bathed in a typical electric guitar rock
sensibility, but its best moments are
when it's able to step outside this for
mat. Luckily there are plenty of these,
and even the straight rock tracks have
interesting touches, such as the organ
on "Monday Monday Monday."
"Not Tonight" is a nice three-chord
number based around acoustic gui
tars — short but insightful — begin
ning with the lyrics: "Love, pull your
sore ribs in, I will pull your tangles
out." later, the singers ask: "What will
bring me home? What will make me
stay, stay?"
Relationships are a prevalent theme
among the album's 13 tracks. I lowev
er, the stories — if they can even be
called that — contain an awareness of
the complicated, fragile and often
self-centered nature of love. What's
difficult about quoting lyric pieces is
that it doesn't get across the emotion
of the Quin twin's voices. 1 low some
thing is said is nearly as important as
what's being said, and Tegan & Sara
have a knack for getting intense but
playful accentuations with their
singing voices.
The production team of John
Collins and David Carswell give "If
It Was You" a full, refined sound. A
highlight of this is the track "Living
Room," a folky number tricked out
with steel guitar licks and banjo ac
companiment, with lyrics such as:
"My windows look into your living
room / I spend the afternoon on
top of you."
The sisters record on Neil Young's
Canada-based Vapor Records. "If It
Was You" is the most readily available
Tegan & Sara release, but those who
can't get enough might want to check
out 2000's "This Business of Art" and
1999's "Under Feet Like Ours," their
ever-elusive debut album. The latter is
only available for exorbitant sums of
money. All are highly recommended,
and will flesh out the diversity of the
twin's music for listeners.
The two seem to be touring ma
chines, so a return trip to Eugene
seems highly probable. Tour dates,
additional tracks and videos are avail
able on the sister's Web site,
www.teganandsara.com.
Aaron Shakra is a freelance reporter
for the Emerald.
Courtesy
Relationships and the complications of love are themes in Tegan& Sara’s new album.
Films
continued from page 9
Regardless of the implications the scene
has, it could be taken as merely an expres
sion of that sentiment .
Many of the sequences in the film exist
solely for their absurdity, and trying to "un
derstand" the film in any way would be a
long and futile task. Much like in Bunuel's
first film, "tin Chien Andalou" ("Land
Without Bread"), rationality has no place in
"Phantom," and trying to attach some grand
interpretation to the film is pointless.
Ibis is not to say the film has no mean
ing. But it is an attack, not a statement, and
it helps to keep that in mind when watch
ing it. It takes certain ideas — free will,
morality and family values — and trashes
them with an anarchistic glee. It portrays
people who see themselves as free-choos
ing individuals and then shows them, over
and over again, why they are wrong.
All of this makes the film sound more se
rious than it really is, however. Above all else
the film is a comedy, the sort that makes you
wince through the laughter. But nobody
ever said comedy couldn't have a bite to it.
Ryan Nyburg is a freelance reporter
for the Emerald. His opinions
do not necessarily represent those
of the Emerald
Nyburg
continued from page 9
And there is an often overlooked aesthetic to hor
ror movies. You may not think there is an art to
films about zombies, but then you probably
haven't taken the time to do a shot-by-shot study of
"Night of the Living Dead." If you did, you'd proba
bly notice that many of the shots have odd camera
angles, the close ups are almost claustrophobic and
there is a dependence on low-angle shots that make
the characters seem to loom over you. Truly one of
the great American films.
In case you haven't gotten the point yet, I am
serious about horror movies. I like to attack my
obsessions with zeal, which is why the past few
years have been so difficult for me. The horror
genre has been fairly lackluster lately, with fewer
and fewer quality films being made. Of course,
quality is a relative term. One extremely bad
movie, "Plan 9 from Outer Space," is also a
highly entertaining one. That gives it a certain de
gree of quality.
I have a T-shirt for it.
So, while many people haven't noticed the poor
quality of recent horror films, I've been taking it
pretty badly. I see it as nothing less than the death of
an art form. Or something like that.
Ryan Nyburg is a freelance reporter for the Emerald.
His opinions do not necessarily represent those
of the Emerald.
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