Gnome

Overview

Freya and Elias Berkhout’s relatively new sibling collaboration is off to a good start. They won the recent Sydney Festival Soundtrack Competition, which saw their tune 'Picnic!' played as the 2013 Festival’s theme song, and they’re now about to release their debut EP, See In Walk.

Freya might be known to some indie music lovers for her work as one-half of experimental pop duo kyü, which appeared at Homebake 2009 and won the Hopetoun Incentive.

However, Gnome’s sound takes on a new dimension altogether. She and her brother combine a range of influences and interests, and their work fuses classical and world music with electronica. Live, they float deftly executed harmonies over loops, creating dynamics through percussion breaks and rhythmic changes. Freya has described it as “loosely a combination of Brian Eno, The Knife and Sufjan Stevens”.