Deux Filles

* Limited blue vinyl LP in a gatefold sleeve, edition of 500 * Back in 1982, many were happy to believe that Deux Filles really were tragic French orphans Claudine Coule and Gemini Forque. In reality, the ambient/instrumental duo comprised Simon Fisher Turner, former child star/teen idol and future soundtrack composer, and songwriter/technician Colin Lloyd Tucker. The short, mysterious career of the female French duo Deux Filles is bookended by tragedy. Gemini Forque and Claudine Coule met as teenagers at a holiday pilgrimage to Lourdes, during which Coule's mother died of an incurable lung disease and Forque's mother was killed and her father paralyzed in an auto accident. The two teens bonded over their shared grief and worked through their bereavement with music. However, after recording two critically acclaimed albums and playing throughout Europe and North America, Forque and Coule disappeared without a trace in North Africa in 1984 during a trip to visit Algiers. The short and terribly unhappy lives of Forque and Coule are at the root of the small but fervent cult following the mysterious duo have gained since their disappearance, not least because the placid, largely instrumental music on the duo's albums betrays no hint of the sorrow that framed their personal lives.

The music itself is utterly enchanting; a sublimely realised take on Eno-esque ambient, Gallic pop and European style progressive rock.