HEAR THIS: Kllo

November 13. 2017 | By Mayumi Okamoto

Photo by Leslie Hampton

There are rare occasions when an album hooks you on a first listen and resonates throughout all the tiny cavities in your chest like a nameless ache that unsuspectingly creeps in. Backwater, the debut full length album from Melbourne duo Chloe Kaul and Simon Lam, better know as Kllo, is that album. The electro-pop and R&B influenced debut is built on introspection and flourishes in the quiet moments giving enough space to examine yourself among your complicated web of human relationships.

Kaul’s hushed vocals embody a certain vulnerability that comes with being caught in between two places (“Predicament”) and the uncertainty that follows until chapters in our lives satisfactorily closed (“Last Yearn”). Lam’s production throughout is the semantic equivalent of the perfect run-on sentence that you never want to end…but one that takes the perfect…pause…letting the bottom drop out to let Kaul’s vocals expand into the empty space (“Too Fast,” “Dissolve”). Kllo recently wrapped up their US tour in support of the album and are currently in Europe through the end of 2017. Backwater is out now on Ghostly International.

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