Dawn opens on calm lapping waves in the voice of Gracekelly Fulton, or GK, the frontwoman of Twin Court, who debuted their first album on Saturday afternoon at Argos Warehouse. The first track off the album, “Buka (Opening)” brightens in the milky grace of the gong, paying homage to the culture that supplies half of their instrumentation.
Their studies weren’t for nothin’ — Buka means open in Indonesian, often referring to the beginning of a Gamelan orchestral piece. The initial group formulated in Professor Christopher J. Miller’s Gamelan ensemble, experimenting with the sounds of the dozens of instruments in the basement of Lincoln Hall.
Walking into B24, the room is packed, a mazy cram of orchestral instruments, overwhelming until you get to know them, claustrophobic until you see one of Twin Court weave betwixt them. I met the group late one night when I heard that a rising band wanted to play a show. After taking my shoes off, I was opened to the expansive sound that would give way to the album they finally released to the world and performed in Ithaca on March 1, 2025. That night, they asked me to play the gong for them — a search that would never end, but would give way to many more collaborators.
The soothing, spacey electronic guitar seemed to fit with these Cornell-owned instruments, believed to have been crafted in Surakarta in the late 1950s. The melodic blend of the electric guitar with the bonang, little upside down brass bowls, is essentially Twin Court, and has been since their songs were just inspirations, just iterations of friends jamming with freedom, explorations in the spiritual depth of sound.
The sounds that materialize in Forgotten Turns are a part of the band’s subconscious at this stage. I hear songs like “Sage Creek” and “Out to Pasture,” and I’m immediately transported back to when I first met this passionate crew; except now they are tighter and crisper, honed with the intention of practice and the dedication that comes with putting out a recorded project. The songs, like the band and its frenzied parts, have evolved. “Sage Creek,” the penultimate song on the album, has a slow build of Caleb Levitt’s electronic guitar which mirrors the substantive, emotive percussions of the classic Gamelan instruments. “Out to Pasture” is a more textured, grunge guitar build, though I can still see Jack Neiburg’s hands throbbing over the kendang, a two-sided drum that lays horizontal on a stand. Somewhere between stroking and thrashing, he maintains a gentle reverence for the instrument while beating the song’s vital intensity out of it. The recorded version still reaches its seal with a final gong.
The album release party gave about 120 excited listeners a chance to hear what Twin Court is all about, to feel their humble, bubbly personality, and to contemplate where their sound is headed. Ithaca bands Strange Heavy and Green as New Light opened up, wrenching from a folk quartet into a thrashy punk. Twin Court demonstrated not only their wide range of musical interest in their inclusion of these bands, but the community they have built here in Ithaca.
Twin Court isn’t just fluid in sound and membership, but onstage: During the performance, they completely rearrange their musical formation, passing around the microphone and sitting in front of different percussive instruments in each song. Some are onstage for each piece, others hang for one or two.
The shoeless band was eager to flare their cohesive personality; theirs is a combination of a comfortable group of musicians, really deep in the emotion of the music. Guitarist Wyatt Westerkamp noted the band hopes to “encourage people to be present in the moment and really listen to the worlds around them, especially their own inner worlds and the worlds of nature,” which they ostensibly did. Some attendants became lost to the trance of slow builds and rhythmic intensity, eyes were closed and heads were bobbing. Tears did flow.
The live performance could not claim the gravity of the largest instrument in Miller’s collection, as the gong was left behind in B24. In its place were Lily Dovciak’s awesome low E bass string ringing out, mimicking the vibration in amplification and Asher Davis’ classic American drum kit. As the group won’t have access to Cornell’s Gamelan instruments, they have taken the stride to emulate these sounds. During the live performance, the cymbals of the set added a drama to the sound but crowded out some of the calmer nuance of the Gamelan percussion. Where Twin Court used to give space to the resonant traditional instruments, they edged into a noisy crescendo, tending towards an emo rock sound. Gracekelly commented that letting go of the gongs “sort of signifies our evolution.” The power of the gong “penetrating through your whole body” can’t quite be achieved with these substitutes, but remains strong within the band’s inspiration.
Listeners were also able to revel in the stories of the songs. Jack and Caleb told the tale of how the group, which they describe as a family, wrote the Album’s final song “Iroh” on their porch on a golden spring day in thirty minutes. Caleb joked that the song’s circling lyric “everything blows away” could mean anything to their listeners, but it might as well follow a plastic bag in the wind.
And so the band blows away, petals on a gust, they will find themselves evermore spread out after this school year. They remain committed to growing creatively with one another, even playing a song with no gamelan instruments during the set, to hint that their creative direction will have to grow away from this type of sound.
But the band has more to share; the deliberation of their setlist left out a handful of pieces that listeners should look forward to. For now, Forgotten Turns is ideal for listening to under the stars, under tree branches, as the Spring unfolds with the power of a gong, ringing out over clear water.
Aidan Goldberg is a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences. He can be reached at ag2494@cornell.edu.
