Does the L Train Go to Ronkonkoma?

Living in the city can be a blessing and a curse for any new band. On the plus side, there’s easy access to the press, venues, labels and like-minded artists. But spiraling rents and being shackled to a day job can easily sap creative urges. Twin Sister is a five-piece band made up of members who have shuttled back and forth between their hometowns in Long Island and adopted residences in Brooklyn during the group’s two-year lifespan. A few months ago, four members of the band lived in Brooklyn and one in Long Island, but now the inverse is true, with only keyboard player Dev Gupta remaining in the city.

“Long Island’s the greatest,” says Gupta, while the band is gathered around cheap pizza and beer in the Lower east Side offices of web start-up Kickstarter. “You live an hour outside of the greatest city ever, and you don’t have to deal with all the bullshit of the city.” The band still practices in Greenpoint, but the move away from Brooklyn has allowed the members to quit their day jobs to fully focus on Twin Sister. “We’re gonna be poor,” jokes singer Andrea Estrella.

The band is celebrating the recent release of its second EP, Color Your Life, which contains six tracks that match Twin Sister’s elegiac outlook on life with odd time signatures and elements of conventional pop structure. The ambient electronics of the opening instrumental “Galaxy Plateau” recall Broadcast’s Microtronics series, but there are also shades of Nico about Estrella’s vocals when she hits her stride on “Lady Daydream,” and a palpable love of Krautrock-influenced lockgrooves on the standout “All Around and Away We Go.”

Repeat listens reveal an intricacy to the songs that will leave listeners in little doubt that this is a band obsessed with every facet of its sound. “We spend more time talking about an idea and saying, ‘This would be really cool to have this thing going on,’ than actually playing,” says Gupta. “That’s why the record took so long to make. We would spend a month talking about a track.” This slow-motion approach to recording mirrors the work of Kevin Shields from My Bloody Valentine, whose “Cigarette in Your Bed” is an obvious touchstone of the Twin Sister sound. A full-length release from the band may not be forthcoming any time soon, but they’re gradually getting around to it. “We’re starting to cut out the world,” claims Estrella.

That process of isolation is a return to childhood habits for some of the group. “I didn’t have many friends,” claims Estrella, when asked about her upbringing. “I was a dark girl when I was younger. I was getting into Smashing Pumpkins and Nirvana and all that. It sucked me away, listening to Robert Smith.” Drummer Brian Ujueta continues the theme: “On my 13th birthday I got Post by Bjork, Kid A and Sigur Rós. It was my alternative, I’m-a-sad-13-year-old boy birthday. But those three kickstarted it, especially Bjork, because once I realized I liked that, you can kind of like anything.”

Part of Twin Sister’s collective worldview includes an altruistic adherence to releasing its music into the world for free. The tracks on Color Your Life were initially put out as gratis downloads before gaining a more traditional release on the Brooklyn-based Infinite Best label. “I think we want to continue that for as long as possible,” says guitarist Eric Cardona. “It’s just a kind gesture,” continues Ujueta. “They’re going to look for it, and they might as well come to our site and have it be a gift from us.” Gupta goes further, claiming it would be hypocritical of them to do otherwise: “I wouldn’t know anything about music if I couldn’t download songs illegally. Half the records that we love we’ve downloaded, so it’s a little weird for us to look down on someone and say, ‘I can’t believe you downloaded our album for free.’ I do that constantly.”

When asked about plans for the future, the band members claim to be striving to move forward, making sure Twin Sister remains in a constant state of flux. “I wish it was faster,” says Estrella, in reference to the group’s current melancholy incarnation. “Everything more,” says Ujueta. “If it’s going to be loud, I want it to be really loud. If it’s quiet, I want it to sound like a whisper. We started working on a song that could easily be played in a huge club recently. I don’t think what we tie together is genre-based. It all has to fit a certain sound world. Like putting electronics on an acoustic song and making them seem like they can’t be apart. You associate them together and you don’t know why.”

>> Twin Sister

Aug. 11, Mercury Lounge, 217 E. Houston St. (betw. Essex & Ludlow Sts.), 212-260-4700; 8, $10. Also Aug. 12 at Monster Island Basement.