The Swedish-Australian twins reflect on the very personal significance of their latest album.

Photography by Ryan Shorosky

Fashion by Julia Ehrlich

If you&rsquo;ve followed<a href="https://www.instagram.com/saylouloumusic/?hl=en"> Say Lou Lou</a>&rsquo;s career, you&rsquo;ll understand why they&rsquo;re okay with calling their new record, Immortelle, a comeback.

The duo, Swedish-Australian twins Elektra and Miranda Kilbey-Jansson, debuted in 2012 and released their first album, Lucid Dreaming, in 2015. Lucid Dreaming&nbsp;is a solid record of dream-pop that found an audience with the fashion set, but Immortelle&nbsp;is the next level: It feels cohesive and powerful and emotionally vast, yet still very, very chic.

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Some of that creative growth can be traced to parting ways with their past ties in the industry and striking out to make a fully independent record.

&ldquo;We needed to take some time,&rdquo; Miranda says over the phone from Malibu, the breaking waves audible in the background. &ldquo;It felt really hard to be in control of what we were doing. I think taking a step back, and it just being the two of us alone without anyone else was really necessary. &lsquo;Why are we doing this? How do you want to live? And can we create an environment where we&rsquo;re being ourselves, and the music is a reflection of us?&rsquo; That&rsquo;s what took time to create the right environment.&rdquo;

"I think taking a step back, and it just being the two of us alone without anyone else was really necessary."

Featuring a full slate of songs like &ldquo;Ana,&rdquo; which taps into the same trip-hop veins of the Sneaker Pimps or Massive Attack; &ldquo;All Love to Me,&rdquo; a triumphantly arranged groover; &ldquo;Limbo,&rdquo; a song inspired by perfume ads from the&rsquo;80s (they&rsquo;ve even produced a perfume for the album that uses immortelle, or oil of chrysanthemum, as its base); and &ldquo;Phantom,&rdquo; which swings seductively into lost-Bond-theme territory, Immortelle&nbsp;was made while holed up in a nest-like studio in Laurel Canyon, the famed L.A. mountain pass that birthed the likes of the Doors and the Mamas &amp; the Papas.

&ldquo;[We entered this] little vortex bubble,&rdquo; says Miranda, the more talkative of the two sisters. &ldquo;It was two producers [Trent Mazur and Dash Le Francis] that we worked with&rsquo;s home studio. We&rsquo;d just go there every morning, or we&rsquo;d stay over. We moved in a pack for a year. And now all of us have moved in together in this big house in Beachwood, where we have a studio.&rdquo;

In that bubble, the Kilbey-Janssons felt comfortable enough to confront certain matters that have dogged them since the start&mdash;namely, the fact that dad is Steve Kilbey of the legendary Australian neo-psychedelic pop group, The Church, and mom is Karin Jansson of punk group Pink Champagne. Together Kilbey and Jansson wrote The Church&rsquo;s &ldquo;Under the Milky Way,&rdquo; one of the most enduring pop songs from the 1980s. Say Lou Lou&rsquo;s own luscious version is a centerpiece of the record.

"When you’re trying to find your own way as a young creative and you’re constantly reminded about what your parents have done, it’s a little bit frustrating."

LAFINAL10.jpg

FROM LEFT ELEKTRA WEARS SHIRT TELFAR, SKIRT VERSACE, EARRING DIOR. MIRANDA WEARS DRESS VERSACE, BOOTS GIUSEPPE ZANOTTI

CREDITS

Makeup: Charlotte Prevel

Hair: Vernon Francois

Photo Assistant: Julian Berman

Stylist Assistant: Grace Lynch

Makeup Assistant: Keely Maroney

Production Coordinator: Tim Oliver

Say Lou Lou Have Officially Woken up from Their Lucid Dream

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