Twin Sister - “Gene Ciampi”
“If you like Gene Ciampi, you will love his movies!” sings Andrea Estella on a standout track (one of many!) from Twin Sister’s In Heaven. So who the hell is Gene Ciampi, you ask? According to Google, Wikipedia, and IMDb: nobody. Whether so obscure he’s escaped the eye of the internet or (far more likely) just a figment of her imagination, the point of the song is clearly not man but myth. He’s the kind of leading man that’s been out of fashion for decades—he sings, dances, brings the romance and comedy in equal measure—making Twin Sister’s ode to him less an act of faux celebrity worship than a whimsical wish for an outmoded kind of “magic-hearted man” to adore. Much of this nuance is eclipsed, however, by the pure, fantastic sound of this track. Drums shuffle with confidence and subtlety (cowbell!) while bass is hefty and organic. You can almost feel the thick metal coil of the strings on your fingers as it leads between verses. And that guitar—it’s wily yet melodic, the tone bending and springing somewhere between Memphis country and California surf. In true Twin Sister fashion, though, the cumulative effect of “Gene Ciampi” follows neither the whimsy of its words nor the hodgepodge of its sound. Instead, it simply feels fresh, fun, sophisticated, and oh so cool.
runners-up - “Stop,” “Kimmi in the Rice Field”
