Kyra and Tully

Kyra and Tully’s self-titled EP is shot through with the promise and naiveté of young love. But the Kingston, ON couple’s melodies also contain a trace of wistful sadness that might just touch you in your tender places if you’re not careful. Sung with the utmost sincerity, the duo’s lyrics are sweet (but not cloying) and employ the vocabulary of nature’s ebb and flow — the morning sun, the twinkling stars, the rushing river — to tackle matters of the human heart and the universal struggles of daily life. Though the bongo that creeps in later in the song line-up might exude slightly too strong a hippie aroma, the mandolin on the poignant opening track "You” adds exactly the right note of dainty melancholy. Everything about this little disc is as intimate and endearing as the hand-produced, cardboard slipcase that encloses it. As Kyra and Tully would say, it all just feels like sunshine.