Twins want two sides to every story
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Miranda and Elektra Kilbey say they want their music to provoke a strong reaction. “You want boiling hot or freezing cold, you don’t want lukewarm.”
Source: Supplied
TALKING to Say Lou Lou is like watching Wimbledon at double speed. Twin sisters Miranda and Elektra Kilbey trade half sentences faster than Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic smash forehand returns at each other.
The twins were models before moving into music.
Source: Supplied
The Swedish-Australian singer songwriter duo is discussing the irony of playing a recent gig in a cathedral in Liverpool.
Both blame their mischievous behaviour at the soundcheck on their father, The Church frontman Steve Kilbey.
“It was funny that because we were in a church, I got this dad reflex to be silly — Dad can be really inappropriate so I felt I needed to be inappropriate,” Elektra says.
“All those big tall ceilings and acoustics and Miranda said ‘F …’ and it reverberated and came back at me.
“Our manager was not happy, he kept saying we couldn’t swear in a church because he was raised a Catholic. It felt so over the top for us playing in a church.”
With their mother Karin Jansson also a musician, the DNA to sing and perform would inevitably prove strong in the sisters who grew up in Stockholm and Sydney.
After years of fighting their natural inclinations — and a relatively successful career in the modelling industry — they finally decided to join the family business.
Cautiously they uploaded songs to SoundCloud and secured independent releases in Europe before being signed to a recording deal and relocating to London.
A steady stream of singles since then, including their Chet Faker collaboration Fool Of Me have made Say Lou Lou darlings of the blogosphere and whetted appetites for the debut album expected later this year.
Brunette Miranda and blonde Elektra have taken the liberty of demonstrating the duality of their musical sensibilities since their first uploads less than two years ago. Each upbeat indie pop song they post, you can expect a more mellow track to serve as its B-side.
Most recent single Everything We Touch was paired with Peppermint, the release preceding it put Better In The Dark with Beloved. They don’t plan on changing their A-side/B-side approach with the album, calling them a collection of Brother and Sister songs.
“For every single, there is a B-side antidote,” Miranda says.
Say Lou Lou performs at a Gucci beauty launch in New York this month.
Source: Getty Images
“Everything We Touch is about more shallow guilty pleasures and sex and party drugs. And Peppermint is the antidote because it’s about teenage love and clutching onto the details of a relationship. We want two sides to every story.”
Elektra adds: “Better in the Dark is a happy-go-lucky song but that’s not completely us either so we put Beloved with it. So now we have two different groups of fans, ones who love the up-tempo pop songs and the others who like the mellow gut-wrenching songs.
“The more ethereal floaty songs were great for the studio but they don’t work live, they’re not fun to play.”
Say Lou Lou have quickly made their mark among cyber tastemakers and each new song which appears scores immediate feedback from the blogosphere.
They welcome the “feedback”, negative or positive.
Miranda and Elektra Kilbey admit to being homesick for Australia.
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“We put all our time, all our lives into making music now so getting some kind of reaction gives you a push of energy and you want boiling hot or freezing cold, you don’t want lukewarm,” Elektra says.
Both say they get teary with homesickness when talking with an Australian, but mention their upcoming run of European festivals and their excitement is contagious, particularly when they mention the Secret Garden Party in the UK in July.
“That’s the one we are looking forward to because everyone goes as fairies, pirates or hippies. It’s a dress-up festival. During our childhood in Australia we dressed up as fairies,” Elektra says.
■ The Everything We Touch EP is out now
