Alyx Dennison

While Alyx Dennison largely forgoes Kyü’s electronic flavour, the record is still replete with avant-garde experimentalism and immersive soundscaping. However, as far as Dennison’s concerned, it’s a marked departure from her earlier work.

“With Kyü we didn’t use much conventional instrumentation, then this is very song-y songs at times,” she says. “There is still bits of experimental stuff, but I was really self-conscious of the fact that it was guitar songs in C that, at times, had a folky nature. I was scared about coming across as daggy or it being too middle-of-the-road. While we were recording it I kept saying stuff like, ‘This is really daggy,’ or ‘Oh my God, this sounds like Coldplay.’”

In reality, nothing on the record tempts Coldplay territory, but you can understand what Dennison means. See, on the one hand, the album encapsulates Eastern instrumentation, soaring weirdo-pop and ambient post-rock. And yet, it remains very accessible. This is largely due to the centrality of Dennison’s vocals. Granted, there are moments when the lyrical details get obscured by buoyant instrumentation. But tuning into her lyrics – which cover themes of fading friendship, mistaken life choices and the odd fantasy narrative – greatly enhances the record’s impact.

“I wrote a lot of the songs in the period of time where I thought that I had quit music, so I didn’t think anyone would hear them. That’s why I think it’s a very lyrical record. It was more of a therapeutic thing. While I don’t think that the music in the album is particularly challenging or interesting, it’s not about the music as such. It was so much more about the words and what I had to say, and I just comforted myself by thinking, ‘Next time it will be all about the music,’ and I can be more self-indulgent in that way.”

Across the record’s eight tracks, a variety of different arrangements and textures come into play. The opening track, a three-part number called ‘Triptych’, weaves in and out of intricate instrumental sections, while ‘My My’ comprises just percussion and vocals, ‘LAX’ adopts a stripped-back acoustic folk set-up, and ‘Jewels Are Just Lumps’ is a hearty slice of baroque pop. For Dennison, determining the nature of a song’s arrangement is an integral part of the creative process.

“Normally I get an idea for something and stick with it,” she says. “Usually when I write songs, rather than writing a whole song, I’ll just create a really fleshed-out 30 seconds that’s really produced and sounds how I want the rest of the song to sound. It’s a really backwards way of working.”

With regards to composition, everything came from Dennison, but the album includes contributions from Nick Wales on strings, Bree van Reyk on percussion and Georgia Mooney and Brian Campeau on backing vocals. Also, producer David Trumpmanis played a crucial role in bringing it to life.

“Working with him was amazing,” Dennison says. “We really worked together on everything. I couldn’t have done it without him. A lot of it was him dealing with my crazy ideas and me explaining things hardly in English. And he worked very well with that.”