From the end of a graffitied tunnel, a shadowed figure runs forward in slow motion, the muffled chords of a guitar growing louder as she draws close. It is not clear if she is running toward or away from something unseen, but she approaches the exit like a swimmer reaching the surface, breaking into the light as the muted music crashes through.

Behind her, the tunnel darkens again. A silhouetted figure flashes in the distance, playing the guitar against a grainy background. The young woman comes into frame once again, continuing past bare trees, down an overgrown path, and boldly faces the camera.

We are spinning to the ground We fall straight onto our knees We fool ourselves every time...

The words are sung with a mature, haunting directness that belies her age. At barely 17 years old, Scout Brandes is striding into the music scene with determination. Brandes is half of Inkaiya, the hard rock father-daughter duo that just released their first album, debuting 12 original songs—some written by her expectant dad before she was even born.

Yes, the dark figure at the end of the tunnel is Corey Brandes, Scout’s father and creative partner. Together, the two have written, performed, mixed, filmed and edited nearly every word, note and video of their work. A physical education teacher by profession, Corey is a self- taught musician—with Adam Levine looks and Elliott Smith vibe—who caught the rock bug in high school and played in a band in college.

By contrast, Scout is classically trained and has performed with the Bach Children’s Choir at Carnegie Hall, Fenway Park, Eastman Theatre and Hochstein, to name a few. She also plays the French Horn and has acted in nearly 30 musicals since she was a child. Despite her training, Scout shares her father’s innate musical abilities, relying on her ear over education as she teaches herself drums and piano.

Lest one envision Von Trapp-esque evenings of dad strumming the guitar while the children harmonize to Do-Re-Mi, Inkaiya’s songs are complex contradictions that contain both grace and grit. In “Rest Your Head” (a lullaby that Corey wrote for Scout when she was born), floating vocals build gently to a seemingly ethereal crescendo—where they are met abruptly by an urgent refrain of drums and guitar that is both powerful and unsettling.

The unexpected ups and down, the weaving ins and outs, are what Corey likes about their work. To read the lyrics in “Rest Your Head,” one pictures a soothing melody penned by new parents:

So here you are

As the both of us have dreamed You are the star

That shines all through the night.

But when those moving words are suspended over dark minor chords, the effect is otherworldly.

Scout, who wrote two of the album’s songs and sings all the vocals, has found new confidence in this experience. While recording “Son of Secret Path,” Corey grew frustrated over Scout’s insistence to perform the vocals with her own spin. Since she had written the song, she booted her dad out of the basement (their recording studio) and proceeded to painstakingly record 40- 50 takes until she got it the way she wanted. Her fidelity to that inner voice paid off.

Similarly, Corey followed his intuition when it came to the band’s name. During a cold wintry night in COVID, the name “Inkaiya” came to him in a dream and he awoke knowing what they were called to be. He had no idea what “inkaiya” meant, so he dove into research and learned that it’s the name of a 300-year-old tree in Turkey and translates to “one with the sea” in Japanese. To Corey, a student at the Rochester Zen Center for several years, both of these translations felt right and Inkaiya was born.

What’s next for the aspiring band? Having recorded their first album during the pandemic while sequestered in their home, Inkaiya has begun plans for their second album. Already streaming on Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube and Sound Cloud, with a growing following on TikTok, Instagram and Twitter, Inkaiya is just getting started. Buckle up.