// Letters to YVYNYL // 

premiere: SUNKEN - Recompose 

 / I hated it when people told me I was “too young” to do things in life. This sibling duo - Finn Billingham and sister Poppy Billingham - is working hard to respond to that challenge in their nascent music career. You’ve got to get to the later half of this song to really get its gravitas. At about 2:50, the song breaks apart into a hot, melting downbeat that you’d wish went on into the next track. Hello, DJs (hint, hint)!

Hi Mark,

Thanks for giving us a place to talk about the song and the reasons we are so happy to be making and writing music at the moment. Me and my sister begun writing songs together last summer, predominantly inspired by the music being made around us. The part of London we live in has loads of great artists coming out of it that pushes you to find a sound that captures the uneasiness of being young in a city like London.

Going through this process with my 17 year old sister has added another dimension to this unease, with the struggles of a young female singer being so apparent,  as her influences are not being heard and some people miss the nuance of what she is trying to craft. People are eager to group us in with pop acts where young women trying their hand is maybe more familiar and less threatening for some of the musicians who are trying to do a similar thing.

In the end we feel this comes out in the moody tone of the song, which living in London has helped to facilitate. Primarily due to its community of artists with similar ideas and sounds, like Babeheaven, King Krule and Jerkcurb, who definitely inspired us to find our own identity. On top of this, growing up in the same household, where we were exposed to a range of music, from Nina Simone & James Brown to Groove Armada and the Gotan Project, has made it much easier to find a coherent sound as we both draw on similar influences.

The last piece of the puzzle was finding the right people to help bring these songs to life, which our band mates have definitely done. Elliott Higgs, who plays keyboards in our shows pointed us towards what is going on at the moment, showing us bands like Cellar Door who have such a good sound. Finn Boxer, who’s put his own take on the song and our music, helped lock the song to a groove which differentiates us from lots of what’s going on.

We hope to show this all this with our latest track. Creating something unique, that still captures the feeling of the community, is essentially what we are trying to do. We want to keep the songs sounding raw/authentic and make sure we retain the passion we have for this now for a while longer. At the moment we’re focused on getting our live sound polished, as we’ve put a lot of time into recording demos over the past couple of months. Getting to know other artists who want to create a similar experience has given us an even further taste and hopefully we will be back with something soon.

All the best,

Finn 

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