Elite Gymnastics is the deeply personal project of Minneapolis-based James Brooks and Josh Clancy. Rooted in a wildly diverse set of influences, the duo make music that is informed by pristine Korean pop, crushingly heavy noise, and the entire world of endless media that surrounds them.

But rather than sound scattered, it's laser focused and filtered through a sense of resigned melancholy, paired with wide-eyed lyrics that grapple with what happens when people drift apart, when they die and what it means to stumble through life wondering what, exactly, you're supposed to do with yourself.

They are brutally honest, but never really cynical. They are always making hopeful music.

After building slowly towards an all-encompassing beating pop heart through a series of online only releases, Brooks and Clancy completed the gorgeous Ruin 1 and Ruin 2, a pair of distinct EPs combined and split between the A/B Side here as simply RUIN.

On Ruin 1, the duo jump genres effortlessly: the slow, religious throb of "Omamori" gives way to the frenetic, jungle-influenced "Here, in Heaven" before switching gears entirely for the driving shoegaze of "Little Things." Ruin 2 is a blurred, slow version of Ruin 1's pinpoint clarity, flipping the songs into woozy and contemplative mirrors of the originals.

Clancy and Brooks are effortless synthesists, informed as much by their impeccable taste as they are by their ability to suck in the world of music and television and the internet and spit it back as pure, open-hearted beauty.