A beautiful name, The Twilight Hours. And the music is ravishing.

But who are these two men from Minneapolis? Can the hearts of John Munson and Matt Wilson be as pure as these songs we hear?

No. These are two practical and desperate gentlemen who have scrubbed around in the underbrush of music long enough to have touched glory and to have been gored by humiliation. Imagine the most moldy dressing room inside the loneliest bar. Now imagine two middle-aged men on a vinyl couch, crying in their underwear. There have been some sad moments.

Three decades ago, like proud and powerful young rodents, Munson and Wilson set about digging at the roots of a golden shrubbery called Music. They scratched the dirt for money and glory they thought might be buried underneath. Meanwhile, as they gouged their holes, time and wind killed the plant. Now, decades later, they raise their brown heads to see that the bush is dead! And there is no treasure! What else can the two rodents do, but return to their digging? They are The Twilight Hours.

And yet, weirdly – impossibly – the recordings that Munson and Wilson have patched together possess the power to build a green and complete universe inside your mind. How can two such degraded men create a sonic landscape of endless moisture and springtime. How?

How are insects made? Who teaches the birds to fly? Musicologists can explain the science behind Munson’s booming bass technique. Divinity students can guess as to the source of magic lies behind Wilson’s poetry. But here we are, in the flickering twilight of their time on earth, and their music is definitive, true and alive.

Still, you have questions. You need to hear the details of their broken lives – the scamming for money, the orchestras they’ve assembled and discarded. Maybe, if you gained some biographical context, you could decode the music: you could understand the songs as machines, rather than as incantations. Because when a work of unspeakable religious majesty such as “Stereo Night” looms directly above us like a tree that can touch the clouds – and then rise through them into heaven – isn’t it our duty is to dissect the tree? If The Twilight Hours present us with a plant whose fruit can give eternal life, isn’t it our job to study the fruit? To break it down and understand?

Eat! Eat the fruit. Stop questioning, and live forever! Bite down and experience eternity in a single song!

Those of you who fear magic, continue with your questions. Learn more history. Study the science of things that are dead.

And for those of you who are ready to fly up to the sun: here are The Twilight Hours.