Kinky Love – “Hush” (audio) (Premiere)

The Chicago-based duo of Dan Zima and Xoe Wise, who go by the attention-grabbing name Kinky Love, are in the business of textural, spacey synth-pop. With their recently released Promise EP, the two garnered some attention to their take on this increasingly popular genre, and now with “Hush”, available for stream and download here on PopMatters, they are demonstrating their continuing interest in the craft. The clipped beat of the song, combined with its layers of synthesizers, proves to be an appropriately understated backing to Wise’s airy vocals.

Zima says of the song, “‘Hush’ is one of our oldest songs, written before I had even met Xoe. It took on a really different quality once she put her voice to it. It started to feel more melodramatic, which is what I always wanted to go for anyway.”

Wise explains the lyrical content of the song: “It’s a song that has to do with a moment in time where you understand everything that is terrible, and all the ways you have not been understood. It’s when you kind of accept and notice the mess and hope that the surrender can help quiet your mind.”