Naarm/Melbourne avant rap duo Teether & Kuya Neil have revealed their eagerly awaited debut album, YEARN IV via Chapter Music.

Recorded in Naarm and completed in London, YEARN IV embodies Teether & Kuya Neil’s global influences as well as the strength of their connection to local scenes. Based around Teether’s assured, vivid wordplay and Kuya Neil’s hyper-modern production, the record draws you into the heady world of two musical outsiders, raised by the internet, pushing restlessly past sonic, thematic and physical boundaries. 

Their kinship stems from similar experiences as lonely teenagers, discovering dark atmospheres through metal and learning to shred on pointy guitars before finding their way into electronic music. Be it discovering The Black Album or chugging along to ‘Master Of Puppets’, their metal roots still influence the ethos that guides both artists today: a deep commitment to community and to finding space for alternate forms of expression. 

Teether & Kuya Neil also both grew up as outsiders in suburban Australia – Kuya Neil as a member of a Filipino-Australian family, Teether with Malawi-Italian-Australian heritage. Looking in from the margins of Australian life has given them a unique perspective, a readiness to pierce holes in the aural and cultural fabric of the world around them, and helped shape their off-kilter style in the face of the mainstream. 

YEARN IV asks: is this world the one you want to be part of? If not, what world can you create for yourself? When you yearn for what you don’t have, do you strive to build what you lack, or are you just dreaming to reach an impossible goal? Is the very act of dreaming enough all by itself?  To “yearn for” contains multitudes, as does the album. Wild and untraditional, rich and varied, surreal but earthy, jagged but welcoming, YEARN IV makes a new shape for modern rap in Australia and the world.

Throughout YEARN IV, Teether & Kuya Neil dance with musical structure just as they roast and eulogise the societal structures that shaped them. Ultimately Teether & Kuya Neil find a vivid, unique voice amid a sea of clashing cultural experiences and sonic histories, rising out of the bland isolation of contemporary urban Australia to create something far-reaching and beautiful.

Release: May 2, 2025, Chapter Music