KYÜ – KYÜ

In the year or so since they formed kyü, Sydney-siders Freya Berkhout and Alyx Dennison have won band comps, toured, and recorded an album in six days. It’s a testament to their talent and fearlessness as artists that their self-titled debut is as strikingly listenable as it is. These aren’t pop songs in the conventional sense: less about hooks and choruses, and more about atmosphere and raw feeling. Their twin vocals, by turns whispered, fey, and something more strident, work as both lead instruments and orchestrated colour. On songs such as Sistar and Sunny in Splodges, I hear the influence of Kate Bush and Björk: in the collision of folky polyphony, electronics and big, stark tribal drums, and in the sense that their experimental and earthy, sensual sides work in tandem. At other times they remind me of Joanna Newsome (but not as twee, perhaps). Ably assisted by producer and arranger Daniell Johnston, kyü have created one of local albums of the year, full of flickering lights, bagpipes and penny whistles, rippling underwater pianos, unearthly voices and strange beauty.
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