IBEYI - Ibeyi

The French-Cuban twins Naomi and Lisa-Kaindé Díaz were under close scrutiny in 2015, after making a name for themselves the previous year and winning near-unanimous critical approval with their debut EP "Oya". Their signing to XL Recordings, the label behind several of the biggest recent musical trends (FKA Twigs, Jungle, East India Youth), simply acted as an amplifier. Not that the duo particularly needed it: more or less every specialist music blog and site had already flagged them as one of the names to watch.

Born and raised in Paris, Ibeyi are the daughters of Cuban percussionist Anga Díaz, a member of Buena Vista Social Club, who passed away when the two were just eleven years old. Their family gave them their first grounding in an artistic education, with their mother in particular raising them on Yoruba culture (a language spoken in West Africa that reached Cuba over three centuries ago through the slave trade). After their father's death, the two sisters also took up the cajón, the percussion instrument that was Díaz's trademark.

All this multiculturalism has contributed to shaping what is now the Ibeyi sound, a fusion of traditional Cuban folk, experimental pop, Parisian jazz, R&B and minimal electronica. Mysticism and religiosity are just as integral to the album, starting from the opening track "Ellegua", a traditional Cuban prayer sung in Yoruba. "Oya" invites comparison with Björk: gorgeous vocal harmonies stretching out over tribal percussion with real pop flair. Percussion also turns up on the following "Ghosts", this time as the backbone of the whole track, and on "Behind The Curtain", further proof of how firmly these two women's Cuban roots are planted.

"River" and "Think Of You", on the other hand, lean towards electronica and R&B, although here the two sisters really don't take many risks, choosing instead to focus heavily on vocals and very little on beats and effects. As the tracklist unfolds, the album unfortunately sheds some of its innovative qualities and cross-pollination of sounds, settling into safer, more familiar territory. Hence the elegant but unremarkable ballad "Stranger/Lover" and the "Weatherman"/"Faithful" pairing, where the formula of minimal beats, piano and layered vocals offers little or nothing of interest.

Better instead when Naomi and Lisa-Kaindé open their hearts and let us into their family dramas, with the touching "Mama Says", which conveys with real feeling the pain felt by the twins' mother at the loss of their father, and above all with "Yanira". Here the singing becomes a prayer for their older sister, who died suddenly in 2013, and the track conveys all the anguish the sisters felt in those moments, with even the beep of the heart-rate monitor feeding into this harrowing emotion.

Ibeyi, despite being just nineteen years old, already show they have ideas and personality to spare. The desire to experiment is there, it just needs to be nurtured rather than, as happens on a few songs, confined to replicating the latest trend. A very good debut, nonetheless, in which the connection between Naomi and Lisa-Kaindé's souls is the true backbone of the duo's musical vision. After all, Ibeji, in the Yoruba language, means precisely "twins".

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17/02/2015