Brighton band The New Eves on folklore, feminism, and their debut album 'The New Eve Is Rising' • Neu • DIY Magazine

“I think something that we’re definitely doing is retelling stories, and redefining different archetypes or ideas,” reflects Nina Winder-Lind, guitarist, cellist, and co-vocalist of The New Eves. “We’re trying to make some space and break things apart a bit.” Judging by the art-folk quartet’s current cult following, it’s an approach that has steered them well so far. Forged by word-of-mouth whispers and mesmerised audiences, their beguiling live shows - which feature everything from improvised dance to ritualistic chanting - have catapulted them into alternative music’s most coveted spaces, and, now, they’re preparing to unveil debut album ‘The New Eve Is Rising’ to the world.

Residing in Brighton, the group originally met through mutual friends in the city’s thriving music and arts community. “We had different projects before The New Eves, and then we all stopped playing in those projects at a similar time,” says Nina. “We didn’t know what was going to happen, but it all fell into place in this really crazy way.” Soon, the band - completed by Violet Farrer (guitar, violin, vocals), Kate Mager (bass, vocals) and Ella Oona Russell (drums, flute, vocals) - realised that the sum of their seemingly anomalous individual energies sparked a unique chemistry and magic, and The New Eves was born.

“Being in a band is a very intense type of relationship, and we’re such a strange group of people to be doing that with, really,” Kate reflects today, speaking to DIY alongside Nina. “But that’s part of what makes everything so interesting; that’s what makes The New Eves what it is.”

The result of their collaboration is a vibrant, multidisciplinary collage of re-contextualised folklore, blending the free-spirited rawness of ‘60s garage rock with a beguiling poetic mysticism that instrumentally leans into freak-folk and beyond. For them, however, boundless self-expression takes precedence over any prescribed stylistic intention. “We really try to not put ourselves in any box or genre,” Nina quietly asserts. “Then people have preconceptions about you, and then you’re expected to do something particular.”

This lack of pigeon-holing perhaps in part stems from their eclectic and disparate musical influences, which they say shape the music in unpredictable ways. “When I’m playing, I might be thinking about, I don’t know, some funk song for my bass part,” Kate comments. “But then Violet’s thinking about Nirvana, and Nina’s thinking about Bulgarian choirs or something, and then it all comes together.”

“I think it’s very, very simplifying and sometimes a bit patronising when someone [says] ‘oh, you’re a feminist band’.”

— Nina Winder-Lind

Their sound and aesthetics aren’t just shaped by musical influences, either. “Knitting is a big part of The New Eves, actually! I think it’s really cool that these traditionally female crafts that aren’t seen as ‘art’ are much more appreciated now,” Nina tells us. “You go to a car boot sale and there’s tattered lace in a cardboard box, and you think ‘someone made that - probably a woman’, which is incredible.”

Accordingly, whether it be photography, painting, or their tailored, cottagecore-leaning apparel, the group place equal importance on an array of artistic mediums. As these practices already play a huge role in their individual selves, Kate explains, “it would be hard to keep [them] out of what we’re doing.”

Given that many of the band’s visuals are set against strikingly provincial, quintessentially British backdrops, it feels appropriate that they chose the rural Wye Valley’s iconic Rockfield Studios to record most of their debut album. “We weren’t in London, and there was no outside noise. If you needed some space, you went up in the hills,” Nina details. “We all had our own rooms with our own bathtubs - it was incredible.”

Those who have caught The New Eves in concert will likely attest that the finished recordings stay very true to their live counterparts - something that Nina notes was “really important for us”. Continuing, she explains: “Because that’s kind of where the magic happens - when we play together in a room.”

Whether delighting in the fraught, bristly propulsions of ‘Highway Man’, or losing oneself in ‘Astrolabe’’s droning strings and primal incantations, the journey to the enigmatic heart of the band truly begins with the album’s powerful opener and pseudo-title track, ‘The New Eve’. Challenging religious, societal and gender conventions with captivating poetic conviction, the song is a goosebump-inducing portal into their world. “There’s middle-aged men who have had an incredible experience listening to that song,” Nina shares. “It revealed itself in a mystical way: I made a painting called ‘The New Eve Is Rising’, and then a bit later I wrote that poem, and then we did the song.”

The chord-striking boldness of these lyrical expressions in the context of the band’s all-female lineup has led many to brand The New Eves as ‘feminist’. However, they make clear that their relationship to the term is actually much more complex and far-reaching than the label leaves space for. “It’s like when we get called a ‘female band’,” Nina tells us. “I think it’s very, very simplifying and sometimes a bit patronising when someone [says] ‘oh, you’re a feminist band’. I think we need a different language around these things. Right now, we have these terms like ‘feminism’ and ‘female’, and they’re still very present in our language, but I feel like it’s shifting. We’re on the edge of something.”

The last year has well and truly been a whirlwind for the group, from their signing to Transgressive Records, to bagging slots supporting Black Country, New Road and YHWH Nailgun. “It’s crazy - we haven’t actually had that much time to look back and feel proud, because it’s been so busy,” Nina admits. It may be mile-a-minute at the moment but, to their audiences, The New Eves undoubtedly make a lasting impression - one which, they hope, will inspire people to “feel something they haven’t felt before, and do something they haven’t done before”.

‘The New Eve Is Rising’ is out on 1st August via Transgressive Records.

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