From sitting in the backseat listening to artists like The Eagles and Shania Twain on family road trips, to writing songs to cope with college life in NYC, music has always been a part of the lives of twin sisters Atisha and Nishita Lulla.
And today, the two sisters who perform under the name LULLANAS have released their debut full-length album, pretty lies and time machines.
For Atisha and Nishita, LULLANAS was born out of a struggle to adjust to a move from their hometown in Pennsylvania to New York, and a desire to explore the wonders of a guitar that Nishita received from their father before the move. Exploring turned into writing songs, and writing songs turned into gigs around the city, and eventually it led the sisters to release their first ever single, “Don’t Say,” which has since amassed more than 4.1 million streams on Spotify alone.
The release of their 2020 EP, Before Everything Got Real, produced by Peter Katis, solidified their melodic folk pop-fueled sound with isolated vocals and an emphasis on acoustic instrumentation. With pretty lies and time machines, it follows up previous projects as an example of how the duo has not only maintained their fresh sound, but evolved it as they too have evolved and grown. It comes across in a vain of Gracie Abrams and similar sister duos like Lennon and Maisy Stella.
The opening track of the album, “butterflies in reverse,” showcases the sisters’ vocals as a pair, and sets the tone for the rest of the album with a country-pop drum beat and the rhythmic jingle of tambourine in hand.
The project reintroduces popular singles like “contradiction,” “nearsighted,” and the title track, “pretty lies and time machines,” but also hits fans with new and vulnerable tracks like “care enough,” which expresses the tension that lies between a need to communicate and a fear of being judged for caring too much. While “care enough” centers around the turmoil that often comes with communicating in relationships, the album’s seventh track, “press play” conveys that craving for nostalgia and closure that often comes after a relationship is over.
The album wraps up with the upbeat sayonara that is “wish you well,” ending the collective eleven tracks molding a positive message out of the oftentimes inevitable goodbye.
The sister duo strives to bring a certain intimacy to their songs, creating a sound that makes the listener feel as if they are also in the room with them, and pretty lies and time machines emphasizes this. It’s often gentle, vulnerable, and always poignant.
LULLANAS has played alongside indie artists like Maggie Rose, Darlingside, and Wild Rivers, and undoubtedly will take this newfound stardom and run with it, continuing to share intimate stories that speak to the masses in the process.
