If you check out Cherie Kekko’s Instagram, it’s filled with her colorful illustrations, breathtaking sunset photos, and rendezvous in nature. It’s clear from her captions that she likes to take in the beauty, reminding herself and others to enjoy what’s in front of you by putting the phone down. This potent spiritual awareness is also a driving force in her music as Kekko, the dream-pop duo she plays in with her partner Tim.
Kekko make music that is not of this realm. Their debut single “Within You” is a soundtrack for floating through the Aurora Borealis. Cherie, whose breathy voice is a honeyed stream, is looking for a sign, but her vocals mostly get lost in the blissful haze of synth from her partner. “Tell me what to do / Show me where to look,” she sings at one point. Kekko’s music is inspired by spirituality and Eastern philosophy, centered in a warm embrace of ambient synths and steady percussive slaps.
A recent post from Cherie finds her writing about the mantra “the universe is within you.” She wrote that those are words she knows “intellectually but [forgets] to really Feel into. the experiential knowing of a truth is always far greater than the understanding of just reading about it in a book.” The duo’s debut single is a sonic capsule of that greater, otherworldly sense—a meditative balm to emphasize that there’s an entire world out there that’s not fixed on a screen in our hands.
Listen to Kekko’s “Within You” via Spirit Goth below and follow the band here.
