The Nation of Two formed a decade and a half ago when Darius Morrison and Lauren Vignec saw The Need and Elvin Jones. We were pretty experimental at first, with a lot of creativity, heat and noise, but with a sound most people found both confounding and exhilarating. People never quite knew whether they should stare in awe, mosh, or ballroom dance to our music. It was fun being a queer band, maybe the first all-transgender band, in a queer scene. And we played some great shows, opening up for bands like Tracy and the Plastics, Shoplifting, Erase Errata and the Gossip. However, the recordings were never quite up to snuff, and the songs never quite felt finished.

That changed when we started recording our first real album, The Sorceress, with Jherek Bischoff. He is an incredible composer and collaborator, whose talents have benefited musicians as diverse as Amanda Fucking Palmer and the Deviant Art Ensemble. When we recorded with him we did one song at a time, and the recordings happened in Darius' basement. They don't sound like they were recorded in a basement though. And the one song at a time focus really changed our music for the better. The best songs land somewhere between the Gossip, the Velvet Underground, and Prince. 

Although we both grew up in Tacoma, have known each other since high school, are both queer, were both raised by Lutheran ministers, and have been best friends for over a decade, when we started we actually had few musical influences in common. That can be a recipe for confusion. But with the proper focus, those disparate influences can be combined in ways that make the music sound new but feel familiar. Over the years, in addition to the bands already mentioned, we've been compared to Sonic Youth, Nina Simone, the Outkast, Radiohead, The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, Crass, Huggy Bear, Nick Cave, The Birthday Party, Diamanda Galas, PJ Harvey, The Sugarcubes, ZZ Top, traditional Japanese music, Ali Farka Toure, Slayer, Metallica, Bo Diddley, Van Halen, Yoko Ono, Blonde Redhead, Tom Waits, My Bloody Valentine, Greg Sage, a Godzilla fight scene, John Zorn, Sleater-Kinney, Nirvana, Led Zeppelin, Ornette Coleman, Guitar Wolf, Javanese Gamelan music, Godspeed You Black Emperor!, Disposable Heroes of Hipophrisy, the Roots, Tool, Yanni, and Antony and the Johnsons. Still, every song sounds like us to us.

The Sorceress will be released in April and promoted on a West coast tour. We recently got our first radio airplay and look forward to getting The Sorceress into the ears of the people. 

The true purpose of music is to establish a means of communication between the realm of the living and the realm of the dead.

Nation of Two, 2012.