When listening to Denmark’s Choir of Young Believers, it’s hard not to imagine an army of white-clad singers with arms outstretched, their voices raised in holy polyphony—in fact, the Danish group is the brainchild of one 26-year-old Jannis Noya Makrigiannis. For years, Jannis moved in the underground circles of the Copenhagen indie scene. After the breakup of his old band in 2006, he moved to the Greek island of Samos and began developing his own solo material. Jannis returned to Copenhagen and, gathering musicians and friends around him, formed Choir of Young Believers, an orchestral-pop project marked by magisterial melodies, dark lyrical concerns, and a healthy dose of cathedral-grade reverb.

The songs on Choir of Young Believers’ debut album This Is for the White in Your Eyes mix modest folk arrangements with ambitious, grandiose indie pop, cooled with a stoic Nordic distance and glowing with an inner light. Musical nods to Roy Orbison, The Beach Boys, Pixies, and Hank Williams abound, but Jannis and his Choir Of Young Believers have forged their own neck-tinglingly singular sound. Live, the Choir takes many different shapes and sizes. Jannis often performs as a duo with a guitar or a piano and cello; other times, up to eight people fill the stage, playing everything from strings and horns to percussion and bells. The one constant is Jannis’ voice: clear, mournful, stretching to the heavens.