Heralding from Adelaide in South Australia, this brother-sister duo are well accustomed to travelling – having lived and worked with artists, street performers and musicians all around the world. Coming from a highly musical family; of Estonian, French and English heritage, Dante and Xavia Nou started playing and recording as children.
Only in 2005 did the BrotherSister project officially begin. Making a studio of any room with some peace and quiet, they compile songs by sending files to each other across oceans and cities, layering melodic acoustic instruments over electronic beats and sounds creating an evocative mix of whimsical and sometimes bleak tale-like songs.
Having been received warmly for a sprinkling of shows in the USA and AUS, the siblings kept their heads down in 2007 to finish their anticipated second album – TheWunderTales. Following in the self produced footsteps of their debut self titled EP, TheWunderTales has remained an international effort with mastering completed in Nashville by Marc Chevalier and artwork in NYC by grammy award winning design firm Shilo, who are currently working on the bands second music video, Still Run.
TheWunderTales spent 2 years in the making with the siblings based primarily in Adelaide for the duration. Demos were sent from laptop to laptop, re-worked, layered up, added to and edited until 14 near complete tracks seemed to gather. From these, 11 tracks gradually revealed themselves as a volume, holding a kind of innate common thread, something otherworldly and tale-like.
The songs were mixed in November 2007 in their grandma’s lounge room, then sent online to be mastered in Nashville. The first artwork idea was a nondescript room with a fake view, hoped to be open to broad interpretation. Drafts were sent to Shilo Design in NYC who took the concept one step further by creating actual miniature models, like stage sets for the tales. The word wunder, not to be confused with wonder or wander, comes from a term defining a place where a collection of curiosities and rarities are exhibited and appropriately captures the diversity of the stories told, the sounds used and the whimsical atmosphere of the record.
“[sounds like] a chamber orchestra playing electronic, classical, and folk music remixed by prefuse 73.”
VENUS zine (USA) winter 2006
“soaringly orchestral and glitch electronic…It’s everything you love from the vocals of Tori Amos and Win Butler, the rhythm section of Thom Yorke’s ‘Erasure’ and the widescreen introspection of Bat For Lashes.”
Spoz, February 08
“BrotherSister show much diversity from gentle guitar pop to gorgeous lullaby-like atmospherics…and experiment more than most big named acts of similar ilk”
Rip It Up (AUS), February 08
