Åyusp

Åyusp (pronounced Oy-usp or locally known as "Ayup") are a Sheffield-based electronic duo formed by Graham McElearney and Paul Jonathan Mills. They emerged around 2016, developing a sound rooted in 1970s German electronic music and combining it with ambient, classical, progressive, industrial and contemporary electronic influences. The band describe their music as “21st Century electronic kosmische” or “21st Century Steel City Kosmische”. Their principal influences include Tangerine Dream, Neu!, Kraftwerk, Harmonia, Ash Ra Tempel and Klaus Schulze.

McElearney was previously in The Third Half - a project co-founded by Peter Rophone. He has also worked with or guested on harp for artists including Regal Worm, Amorphous Androgynous, In the Nursery, Animat and Reverend & The Makers, while Mills was formerly associated with PsychoAcoustic SoundClash and The Weird & The Wonderful.  Their self-titled debut album, Åyusp was released in 2019, featuring extended electronic pieces such as Isochronal Rapture, Atlas Four, Strange Pathways and the three-part Era of Ascendancy / Trans-Edale Express / Era of Ascendancy.

One of their more unusual projects was an audio reconstruction of part of Tangerine Dream's legendary 1975 performance at York Minster, which had previously circulated only in poor-quality bootleg form. The reconstruction was played by Stuart Maconie on BBC Radio 6 Music's Freak Zone.

They subsequently produced Wild Edges (2020), a soundtrack project connected with the University of Sheffield's Festival of the Mind, exploring the archaeology and landscape of Gardom's Edge in the Peak District.

Åyusp have also worked with Sheffield producer Dean Honer (I Monster, Moonlandingz), who remixed and mastered their 2023 track Traumen. In 2025 they released Varmelodi through Castles in Space, with a second album, Signals From the Orange Star, announced for release in late 2026

Åyusp on Bandcamp