We just love witnessing legendary singing duos. The legacy of Madonna and Britney Spears, Eve and Gwen Stefany, and t.A.tu continues after the release of Two Ribbons by Norfolk multi-instrumentalist duo Let’s Eat Grandma.
Rosa Walton and Jenny Hollingworth met in reception class and began making music together at only 13 years of age. As the years kept piling up, their friendship eventually turned into sisterhood. The telepathic bond between Walton and Hollingworth has always been evident since Let’s Eat Grandma’s early years and I, Gemini gothic-pop era. A series of events almost pulled this unbreakable partnership in separate directions during the I’m All Ears tour in 2019. But now Two Ribbons gives a new sense of space and balance to both Rosa and Jenny’s personalities and styles. Released on April 29 via Transgressive Records, the record includes previously released singles ‘Happy New Year’, ‘Hall Of Mirrors,’ and ‘Levitation’. Within a few days after its release, Let’s Eat Grandma’s third album has been critically acclaimed by the most relevant music magazines like DORK, NME, and The Line of Best Fit.
Co-produced with Welsh songwriter and producer David Wrench, Two Ribbons is an intense life-affirming record determined to make the best out of unfortunate and distressing times. For instance, the harmonious chirping of birds included in the melancholic interlude ‘In the Cemetery’ meets the promising guitar arrangements, both acoustic and electric, of the following track ‘Strange Conversations’. Here, a sad one-sided dialogue rises until Jenny’s grief unites with Rosa’s backup vocals ending the loop between the two songs. The twittering from the birds is clearly linked to the times when Hollingworth used to often visit the cemetery after the loss of her boyfriend Billy Clayton. During those days Let’s Eat Grandma’s artistic twinship started to falter. Though Hollingworth wanted “to keep going and not make a fuss,” she told The Guardian, soon Rosa and Jenny learned to let go and not fight the change.
While writing the album, Walton realised that shifts are good for relationships, as she wrote in ‘Two Ribbons’: “Yeah, we both held on so tight that we’re bruising up”. This very last song of the album is a stripped soft ballad that flashes back ‘Deep Six Textbook’ teenage rebellious vibes from I, Gemini. It is no coincidence that in ‘Two Ribbons’ official video the pair is pictured hanging out in the woods together like full grown up women near a stream. This is a clear reference to the ‘Deep Six Textbook’ music video in which Rosa and Jenny jump into the ocean holding hands such as two young and wild teens.
Two Ribbons embodies a back and forth intimate conversation between two separate identities. As a result, the magnetic sound of Let’s Eat Grandma’s new album tempts us to unceasingly listen to it with each session sounding a little different from the last. Inside this album, more light-hearted synth-pop songs like ‘Happy New Year’ and ‘Hall of Mirrors’ are found to best tie each Rosa and Jenny’s personas into a technicolour ribbon.
Words by Martina Bovetta
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