Vanishing Twin

Vanishing Twin weaves experimental electronic pop that feels both transporting and inviting, channeling intricate notions of identity and belonging through an emotionally resonant lens. Their sound draws from a broad palette encompassing Sun Ra, Alice Coltrane, Stereolab, Martin Denny, and Can, yet the group transforms these sources into distinctive playful explorations of their own. Across 2019’s The Age of Immunology they confront the urgency of resisting populism and xenophobia, on 2021’s Ookii Gekkou they highlight reflection’s healing capacities, and on 2023’s Afternoon X they turn to the nature of creativity itself, all with a deft yet unmistakable touch.

Before Vanishing Twin existed, singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Cathy Lucas performed in the London groups My Sad Captains and Fanfarlo while also initiating her atmospheric electronic pop endeavor Orlando in 2014. The 2015 split release Play Time: Music for Video Games paired her with Tomaga, after which the musicians assembled for Orlando’s live performances—drummer Valentina Magaletti, another ex-Fanfarlo member; bassist Susumu Mukai, also known as Zongamin; keyboardist/guitarist Phil M.F.U., formerly of Broadcast; and flautist/percussionist Ellliott Arndt—coalesced into Vanishing Twin. The name stems from the medical phenomenon in which one fetus in a multiple pregnancy perishes and is absorbed by the surviving twin, an event Lucas experienced that prompted her to compose pieces addressing her absent sibling and the alternate paths that life might have followed. These tracks formed the basis of the band’s debut full-length, Choose Your Own Adventure, issued in September 2016 on Soundway Records and lauded for its inventive songwriting and textures, which producer Malcolm Catto of Heliocentrics helped refine.

Following Choose Your Own Adventure’s positive reception, Vanishing Twin returned in May 2017 with the Dream by Numbers EP, whose largely improvised selections carried the music into more psychedelic territory. In 2018 they issued Magic & Machines, a limited-edition cassette on Blank Editions containing two spontaneous pieces captured in one take inside an old mill; those recordings supplied the groundwork for their second album, June 2019’s The Age of Immunology. The record served as a multilingual protest, performed in the members’ native English, Italian, Japanese, and French, against rising xenophobia throughout the U.K. and beyond, and earned widespread critical praise. To fund a North American tour the group put out the instrumental EP In Piscina! in March 2020. For their third album they operated as the quartet of Lucas, Mukai, Magaletti, and Phil M.F.U.; conceived and tracked amid COVID-19 lockdowns, October 2021’s Ookii Gekkou—whose Japanese title translates as “big moonlight”—drew from Piero Umiliani, Art Ensemble of Chicago, and ELO to craft an introspective yet energetic reflection on isolation. When the band resurfaced two years afterward, the configuration had narrowed to Lucas, Mukai, and Magaletti. Embracing greater overlap in roles, they produced October 2023’s Afternoon X, a collection of hypnotic pop collages shaped by the approaches of David Axelrod and Scott Walker.