The Kyiki inside

I've written about Kyiki before and she is quite simply brilliant.

You might know her better as Eleanor Fletcher, lead singer of scrappy folk-dance "outfit" Crystal Fighters. She's a properly qualified pop star and everything, with a degree in music production (she submitted her coursework while on tour in Mexico, which is all rather la-di-da).

As Crystal Fighters begin the long process of recording their third album, Eleanor / Kyiki is striking out with her solo project. One is her debut single, and it's so tasty you could spread it on toast and eat it for supper.

It starts subtly - a meandering keyboard figure has a chance encounter with an echo-drenched vocal. "Well, this is very pretty," you'll be thinking, "but it's 30 seconds since I checked Twitter and Buzzfeed just published a list of Amy Adams gifs that they promise will blow my mind..."

Well, if you disappear down that internet wormhole, you're an idiot. Because once this song gets going, it's transcendent.



PS: In case you're wondering, Fletcher's curiously spelt alter-ego was made up while "researching Hawaiian words" (naturally). Kyiki is "probably the worst parts of me in a weird way," she told The 405. "That's getting all of my negative and crazy parts and putting it into a musical form."

On her official site, Fletcher spells the name entirely in capitals - ie KYIKI - but if I won't let Adele and Prince get away with that sort of linguistic terrorism in my iTunes library, I'm certainly not giving a free pass to a newcomer.

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