Kyu

After Alyx Dennison and Freya Berkhout first met at university and decided to start a band, they bought some instruments and wrote some songs, growing closer as friends in their sharing of common, yet eclectic musical interests. They also grew stronger as a musical duo too, winning the Sydney Uni Band Comp as well as playing at Homebake 2009. They were picked up by the smart folks at Popfrenzy and they soon produced their debut, self-titled album.

“We’ve got so much out of it,” gushes Alyx, who speaks in a delicate mix of eloquence and adorable cuteness. “It’s been a really amazing ride and I think we’re coming to terms with it. It’s not something we ever kind of expected. I think Freya and I always thought we would be professional musicians but we both thought maybe we would do film composition, or things that are much more behind the scenes; not in the limelight.”

The ride has been rather epic for Kyu, who have changed and learnt a lot since they first met and starting sharing ideas. “We are still really close friends but our lives have moved apart a lot,” explains Alyx, who in the past described her relationship with Freya as “inseparable”. “We both have partners (I hate that term!) so we don’t kind of spend as much time together as we did. I moved back to the hills [of Sydney] now and we’re not as geographically close as we were and we’re both really busy, so we tend to only see each other when we’re doing band stuff… so our relationship has definitely changed, but it just comes with growing older and having more responsibilities.

“We were living such a dream, such an idealistic life back then, doing exactly what we wanted to do.”

It’s that time that makes up a lot of the inspiration for this album, though, despite the girls moving on. “We didn’t really sit down and write an album, it was kind of already there,” she says. “We were like, ‘If we recorded something now, how many tracks to we have?’ so we wrote it down and found that it was a full-length and we decided to keep them all together, because we wrote them all at the same time and they belong together.

“We didn’t agonise over it all that much either – we just wanted to get those songs recorded so we could move on to other things because they were very much a product of a certain time, when we were just really happy and idealistic and… wild. I miss that a lot – they’re very much a product of that time that we’re not in anymore and rather than singing about what we’re going through now, when we sing those songs it’s really kind of an homage to that time. We don’t feel all that connected to it, we feel reminiscent of it and nostalgic of it, rather than deeply connected.”

From this you might think that Kyu sang fairly standard, narrative-based songs, but the truth is much further from that than it’d seem. With a style that incorporates vast and diverse influences and echoes of Bjork, Stina Nordenstam, Emiliana Torrini, world and classical music, and a million other influences, Kyu’s music has gathered a fair amount of well-deserved interest and praise due to its rather unique sound. It was something that the girls could see, but never expected to work in their favour.

“In a way that’s not self-appreciating: yes, we had absolutely no concept of the fact that we were going to be accepted into the music scene or by people who write or listen to popular music – I think we knew definitely that it was unique in that regards but didn’t think that people would like it, so it was probably going to be very daggy or be considered in the realm of jazz music or classical music more, in that kind of ilk, as opposed to something that could be accepted in the popular realm,” she laughs.

But with fame comes other things – like public criticism and gossip, things which Alyx admits have been a bit difficult to learn to deal with. “Being subject to good and bad criticism is something that we’re coming to grips with,” she says. “People make assumptions. I was reading stuff today on a blog – Freya did and interview and I was just reading it to see what she had to say – and down the bottom there were all these comments pretty much implying that we were obviously little rich girls and over-privileged and it’s simply not my upbringing at all.

“It’s funny when you see people make assumptions like that and that’s something that’s really hard coming to grips with and that’s really been a challenge for us even even as friends to cope with stuff like that. I think it’s kind of good that it happened early on and we can kind of move past that and be OK with it. It certainly has made us what we are and I’m really looking forward to seeing where our music takes us next.”

For now, it’s going to take them overseas, with Alyx thinking of staying there for as long as she needs. “Freya’s going in January for a holiday and after about a month I’m going to meet her and we’ll be over there for about six weeks playing shows and stuff. We’re playing SXSW. When Freya goes home, I’m flying to England and I’m going to stay there… indefinitely,” she says, her voice betraying mixed emotions.

“I don’t know how long I’ll be there but Freya’s going to come over for a bit and we’ll play for a little while and hopefully do some writing. I don’t have any immediately plans do come back, so we’re just going to kind of take it as it comes. I feel like I need a bit more stimulation – I’ve kind of responded to everything around me here. I feel like I’ve got some growing up to do.”

KYU launch their beautiful self-titled debut album (out now through Popfrenzy) at The Workers Club this Saturday October 30. They’ll be joined by Psuche and Parking Lot Experiments. They also join the newly renamed Djanimals at The Northcote Social Club on November 20 (tickets from northcotesocialclub.com).