Pascal Pinon

Age is just a number? Well, certainly not in this case: Listening to "Pascal Pinon," the band's eponymous debut album, the fact that you're dealing with a bunch of 16-year-old teenage girls is way too evident and in-your-face to merely dismiss it as some kind of "additional cuteness". Yet, the songs presented by Icelandic twin sisters Jófrídur and Asthildur and their band mates Halla and Kristín are certainly that: they're cute. Very much so. Cute and sweet and steaming-hot like those muffins they served at their first-ever live performance, aptly titled "The Friendly Gig". Somewhat strange though that some people have already complained about the foursome not smiling enough on stage. Could that mean it's not all about "cuteness" for them? Since the name Pascal Pinon refers to a two-headed freak show "celebrity" who died in 1929 (and whose second head was really just a tumor modeled to look like a cranium by means of a wax enhancement), one might expect some rather disturbed DIY compositions - especially given that this band is two-headed as well (the twin thing). Yet, these young ladies instead focus on altogether different facets of life: Like a latter-day Thoreau (in "Walden"), Jófrídur praises the beauty of nature in the opening track, which translates to "Under Clear Sky", comprised of three beautiful chords and some poetic lines she composed when she was 13. Elsewhere, the four girls pay homage to Icelandic poet Davíd Stefánsson (1895-1964), or set rather expected (Harry Potter) and unexpected ("thin walls", "shyness") influences to music, singing in English as well as Icelandic, while deliberately ignoring the latest technical advancements: A bedroom, a bunch of guitars, flutes, and a glockenspiel will do just fine, just like that one microphone they placed in the middle of the house they rented to record their fragile DIY gems. It's like they don't really care as long as there's enough room (see the track "Moi") for singing in unison.