LIGHTMAN & LIGHTMAN - SISTER SMILE - REVERIE

Sister Smile draws upon themes of devotion, finding universal strands of beauty in the study of spiritual work. There is a timeless quality to their astral folk songs, weaving shimmering electronics into acoustic arrangements, while the twin sisters’ close harmonies recall The Roches or Kate and Anna McGariggle. Interspersed throughout the record is an imagined conversation between a pair of 20th Century female mystics: Etty Hillesum and Jeanine Deckers.

“We wanted to resurrect these two women as a means to examine a creative life founded in devotion,” explain siblings Romy and Sari Lightman, “while exploring our own relationship towards ideas of faith, sensuality, and defiance.”

Etty Hillesum was a Dutch Jew far ahead of her time, writing in great detail about queerness and sexuality, experimental psychology and her own spiritual awakening in the late 1930s. Imprisoned in a work camp, she wrote about the mechanisms of evil and the importance of finding humanity, even love while existing within governing systems of incalculable violence. Jeanine Deckers was a Belgian nun who became an international pop sensation with her hit "Dominique" in 1963, hitting number one on the American charts. Despite her international success, the terms of the recording contract left her reduced to poverty with her profits being absorbed by the Catholic church. After discovering her long term romantic relationship with another nun, she was exiled from the Catholic order. Depressed and facing financial ruin, Jeanine and her lover decided to take their own lives.

Though they never met in real life, Hillesum and Deckers exist together within these songs. The two overlap in posthumous interviews, conversations, and surrealistic scenes — where an alternate reality ensued: Hillesum sees Deckers radiant in a magazine. The Lightman sisters began writing these songs by gazing backwards into history, yet are deeply rooted in our present moment.

“Interwoven throughout the record is our own religious upbringing within an insular Jewish community and the rejection of these formative ideologies, including the unyielding support of Israel amidst a genocide in Gaza. Here, we examine two artists. Neither were voices of their generation or universally celebrated. Etty Hillesum and Jeanine Deckers were both beyond their time; both condemned, both queer and ultimately discarded and yet they surrendered themselves to an ideal of universal love, to transmute the fear into belonging.

We are looking to the past - as artists do in times of uncertainty to find answers. It is just as crucial that we speak in a new language that is still being formed; a web of new ideologies, new relationships towards collectivity, devotion and hope."

Romy and Sari Lightman are twin siblings from Toronto who work in close concert with percussionist and programmer Evan Cartwright (US Girls, The Weather Station). Their previous projects include Tasseomancy and Lightman & Jarvis Ecstatic Band, with releases on esteemed labels such as Bella Union and Flemish Eye. Both Lightmans were also longtime members of the electronic pop outfit, Austra, whose 2011 album Feel It Break was shortlisted for the Polaris Music Prize.