Taxi Taxi! Taxi Taxi!

Last time we heard from Miriam and Johanna Eriksson Berhan - the teenage identical twin sisters behind Swedish MySpace phenomenon Taxi Taxi! - they'd just signed a deal with the rather excellent Danish label Rumraket, enhancing an already impressive roster featuring the likes of Efterklang, Cacoy and Kama Aina.

This six track EP is the first fruit of this relationship and while the duo hasn't moved too far beyond the sparsely arranged chamber-pop of their acclaimed MySpace demo To hide this way, there's enough quality here to justify the initial buzz surrounding Taxi Taxi!

All I think of is a delicate beautifully fragile introduction to the EP. The instrumentation is pure minimalism; the vocal melody is supported by occasional muted guitar and xylophone notes while a sole tapping foot provides the rhythm. The imagery is childlike yet stunning ("You started to spit ink on all the papers / swept away spider web between all my fingers") and the chorus, with its spine-tingling harmonies, is wonderfully simple. It's a great start.

After such a bare opening the sombre piano of Belle sounds positively orchestral. Another beautiful song with a timeless quality, this might actually be the best thing the Berhans have cooked up to date.

A slightly augmented but equally thrilling version of To hide this way follows. The vocals are certainly stronger than on the original demo recording, and the finger-picked guitar pattern has been simplified which also works in its favour.

The next three tracks Water, Heart and Mary effectively provide more of the same and what initially sounded beautiful and fresh suddenly begins to sound ever so slightly wearisome. Taxi Taxi!'s other MySpace demo Old Big Trees saw the girls flirting with electronic influences and it's a shame that these admittedly tentative ideas have overlooked completely on this EP.

Miriam and Johanna's traditional, simple approach to songwriting works very well here and their talent, particularly in the vocal department, cannot be questioned. I suspect they'll have to broaden their palette and perhaps take a few more risks to truly succeed over the course of a full-length album but for now we should enjoy Taxi Taxi! for the impressive debut release that it is.