{"id":637709,"date":"2026-10-22T05:48:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-22T05:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/637709\/"},"modified":"2026-10-22T05:48:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-22T05:48:08","slug":"alchemical-sisters-alchemical-sisters-album-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/637709\/","title":{"rendered":"Alchemical Sisters: Alchemical Sisters Album Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eris Drew<\/a> and Maya Bouldry-Morrison (aka Octo Octa<\/a>) live in a log cabin in rural New Hampshire, which seems a little strange at first\u2014so far removed from the dance music touring circuit\u2014but it also makes a lot of sense. Radical, queer, and believers in a psychedelics-fueled liberation theology based around the Motherbeat<\/a>, the long-term couple are actually so New Hampshire. The cabin, where they\u2019ve lived since the pandemic, is the focal point of their artistic lives, where they keep a gigantic sound system<\/a> they\u2019ve used to throw their own festival<\/a> in Vermont, and the hallowed turntables that they lug around to gigs across North America.<\/p>\n

To make Alchemical Sisters, their first collaborative full-length, Drew and Bouldry-Morrison transformed the bedroom of their cabin into a hermetically sealed studio. They slept on the floor and took mushrooms for extended periods of time while weaving together an LP made from psych-folk instruments (dulcimer, anyone?), synths, and samples taken from their archive of vintage dance music. The result is a maximalist record that captures the wide-eyed, everything-at-once optimism of \u201990s big beat. Those original records, by artists like the Prodigy<\/a> and Fatboy Slim<\/a>, evoke a time when the distance between the dancefloor and regular life dissolved, and the tracks\u2014dance music made not for function, but for fun, anytime\u2014swelled with the pomp and excess of rock and hip-hop.<\/p>\n

No score yet, be the first to add.<\/p>\n

The new record is the closest that the two have come to infusing their distinctive DJing style into their original productions. This turn to larger-than-life sounds shouldn\u2019t be all that surprising: In their DJ sets together, they play raucous, often older records built on heady climaxes, wailing vocals, and thrashing drum beats. In 2024, Drew even released a rock-themed mixtape<\/a> where she blazed through tracks by Led Zeppelin<\/a> and Janis Joplin<\/a>. Alchemical Sisters has the same brash bullheadedness from the get-go: \u201cThis Is How It Should Be Done\u201d bursts out of the gate with a funky breakbeat and staccato vocal sample before a surging acid line upends everything, the drums change tack, and a guitar swoops in. It\u2019s hard to tell what\u2019s a sample and what\u2019s original, which is probably the point.<\/p>\n