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Yo Kinky is a Queens, New York, post-pop duo that layers seductive patter lyrics over shimmering angular guitars and drum machines. Following the premiere of their first single on the Tower Records site in November and positive coverage from such publications as The Revue, which called their tunes “engaging, infectious, and smart”, Yo Kinky are already forging a name for themselves among the disillusioned and hopeful.
Tom Unish and Laura Wight met at the start of 2020, bonded over shared musical interests and immediately started working together on songs. Over the course of the pandemic, they recorded and produced their self-titled debut EP out 02/26/21. These songs touch upon themes such as truth, adaptability, love and anticipation as Wight’s bright vocals are delivered with a conversational precision calling to mind acts like X, Sleaford Mods, and Blondie.
“Anyone can tell I’m in line with the wire/Anyone can tell I’m aligned with the truth” is the opening line of the EP, blatantly sung over a propulsive and slinky rhythm. The sound is warm and concentrated recalling early trip-hop, yet it is not an exercise in nostalgia. Instead, “ Wire” sounds like a track from a dark but ravishing future as the upward slides on the word “true” resonate long after the song ends.
The lead single, “Someone I Used To Know”, expands the stereo image with a wall of undulated guitars carrying Wight’s sweet and acerbic vocals. While the lyrics may appear dark, Wight’s deep playfulness keeps things buoyant and seductive. Since its release, “Someone I Used To Know” has been in heavy rotation at WFMU, and was featured on the show Three Chord Monte’s best songs of 2020.
Next track “Lonely Love” takes things further with grimy allusions to maintaining the survivalist grind of routine life while dreaming of better days to come. Furnished with a British-tinged declarative style, Wight sings, “I’ve got a lonely love on my mind/Sitting around and holding tight ‘til the might is right” over Unish’s revving synth and gritty guitar.
“Resistance,” their 2nd single, finds the duo exploring a more delicate yet simultaneously strong and confident mood. With Unish’s spaced-out, rockabilly-tinged guitar bouncing through the song’s driving, hypnotic layers of sound, they paint a sonic landscape that yearns for much-needed intimacy in a time of social distancing and isolation. As Wight’s vocals float above the surface, singing “Love is all we breathe” and “Swing me off my feet,” she transports the listener to places of rich yet strange beauty. “Resistance” alludes to keeping sanity amidst chaos and finding contentment from the small things in life.
Infused with a saucy, baffled sentimentality about growing up in Los Angeles and facing the bewildering forward rush of time, the final song “Stretch” closes the record on a note that is reflective yet hopeful, and ultimately, resilient.
Yo Kinky look forward to playing locally, nationwide and beyond.
INTRODUCING RIDGEWOOD, QUEENS INDIE ROCK DUO
YO KINKY
DELIVER WALL OF UNDULATED GUITARS + ACERBIC VOCALS ON NEW SINGLE WITH ACCOMPANYING NOIR STYLE VIDEO
“SOMEONE I USED TO KNOW”
Photo Credit: Steve Peirce
“A wall of sound.”
Tower Records
LISTEN TO “SOMEONE I USED TO KNOW” HERE
WATCH “SOMEONE I USED TO KNOW” HERE
(TODAY – NOVEMBER 20, 2020) – Ridgewood, Queens new indie-rock duo YO KINKY composed of Laura Wight and Tom Unish, share their debut lead single, “Someone I Used To Know” accompanied with a pulsing, granular noir music video suggesting the idea of something lurking in the shadows in a post-apocalyptic tour through the darker edges of the city led by YO KINKY. “Someone I Used To Know” is the first shared track from their self-titled debut EP set to be released in 2021 and was premiered exclusively on Tower Records here.
“Someone I Used to Know” expands the stereo image, with a wide wall of undulated guitars carrying sweet and acerbic vocals, of a simultaneously interrogative and disengaged nature. The lyrics may appear dark, but Laura Wight’s deep playfulness keeps things buoyant and seductive. “Someone I Used To Know” starts off with a minimal, groovy synth line and vocals that belie a vulnerability just beneath the surface. “I know you and I are gonna have a rad time / Full of bad taste, of neat humor” opens the verse with a hip-hop cadence and sets forth with the insight of exciting times to come. The chorus shifts gear with a wall of sound chorus led by treated, foreboding vocal and modulated guitars. By the song’s end you can envision lives lived and loves lost amid a landscape of urban decay, as Wight sings of “gunshots right below my window panes.”
Photo Credit: Steve Peirce
YO KINKY is Laura Wight and Tom Unish. The two met at the start of 2020, bonding over shared musical interests, and immediately started working on songs together. Over the course of the Covid-19 pandemic, Wight and Unish self-produced and recorded the upcoming self-titled debut EP. This collection of songs addresses trust, communication, love, loneliness, freedom, identity, and expectation. The two-piece incorporates drum machines and buzzing, dissonant, squelching keyboards with guitars that alternately shimmer and shake with reverb and delay. Recorded and mixed by Unish, Wight handled the lyrics while Unish performed the instrumentation. Her bright vocals are delivered with a conversational precision that calls to mind acts like X, Sleaford Mods, and Blondie.
For more information about Yo Kinky, visit their website or connect with them on social media @yo_kinky.
Photo Credit: Steve Peirce
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