Dutch/Surinamese artist néomí is growing. Both as an artist and as a person. As she gets older, as we all do, reaching formative years in her twenties, she is evaluating and exploring the idea of time passing. At the same time, her career seems to be taking off, winning an Edison Award for her 2024 debut album, somebody’s daughter, in the alternative category and supporting artists like Seafret on tour.
With so much change at once, we sat down with her in advance of the release of her EP, Another Year Will Pass, out October 31st, to talk about this idea of time passing, her growing audience and her creative process.
You just came back from a headline tour with Josephine Illingworth. You played some really lovely independent venues. How was that experience?
Very nice. It was so lovely to connect with people who obviously live there and wanted to come to shows, but I never did shows in the UK. It’s also a bit of a funny country to play shows in because the hospitality in Europe is so different from the UK. We had so many funny moments where the backstages were very small and mouldy and stuff, but it’s also like rock and roll- I love it. I just genuinely love England, and I love the culture. I have the feeling that they have more respect for music in the UK. In the Netherlands, we have this thing called the “Dutch Disease”, where people talk through shows. The shows have just been so good that people were really there to listen to us, you know? So overall, very good experience. Josephine is also magnificent- what an artist.
That’s so good. We definitely have a bit of unspoken rules about what you can and can’t do at gigs. Talking through them is very frowned upon here.
Yeah, and I respect that! I really love you guys for that. It’s just amazing that you respect the culture and the music.
And now you’re back, are you feeling ready for the EP release on October 31st?
I am back, I think I’m ready. I just never know how to experience releases. I think for every artist releasing your music is the weirdest thing ever because you’ve worked so hard towards that moment and then it’s out in the world and you’re just sitting there at home being like, ‘ahh, everybody’s listening.’ But so far so good. I’m also not sure how you can prepare yourself properly to release anything, but I am very much looking forward to it. I feel good about this bunch of songs, and I feel like it’s really honest and real. And I also like the idea that it’s coming out on Halloween because I love Halloween.
Was there any other reason for Halloween? Or do you just love that date?
I love spookiness and we wanted to release it in October. So, I was like, okay, let’s do the 31st because I love spooky season.
It has a very sort of October-y feeling and vibe to the EP. It’s very comforting.
Yeah, thanks. I think so too. I really enjoy it. And that’s the thing; fall is my favourite season by far. The changing of the season and it getting darker and turning more inwards- I love it.
Talking a little bit about the EP itself, did you always set out to make an EP, or was it more individual songs that just came together naturally?
I knew I was wanting to release an EP after the album because I think, to make another album, I really wanted to have some more time and make more of a conceptual thing. But I just wanted to keep releasing because I like doing stuff. And with this EP, there was a concept because the songs were all written in the same timeframe, I suppose. They were meant to be together. But it’s not like I was like ‘okay, this should be this’- it’s more because I just experience a thing in life and I write about it. But for these bunch of songs, it was in the same timeframe, so I almost knew certain that this is going to be part of this whole thing.
And am I right in saying that you wrote the songs at home in the Netherlands?
Yeah, I wrote them at my producer’s place in The Hague and some at home.
Do you find that where you are physically has an impact on the music that you make? Is it different writing at home than in, say, London or somewhere else?
I write the best when I’m by myself, locked up somewhere and feel all the emotions and can express myself safely. I do really think that a city like London inspires me and gives me a lot of information to work with. And I’ve had so many crazy experiences there that I could also write about. I experience stuff, and a city like LA or London really inspire me to write. But then, when I get back home or home in London where I was, then I write safely. Sometimes I also write with my producer, Jesse, together, but I also feel very safe with him. So, then we can do the expressing together.
A lot of your music flicks between indie tracks like, on this EP, ‘Do You Want To Be Honest?’ and then the more stripped back songs like ‘Trigger’. Do you have a preference between the more upbeat ones and the more acoustic style?
Well, preference, it’s always like choosing your favourite children. To me, I love stripped back. I love the folkiness, the real classic folk, because the artists that I listen to are that. But I also can really enjoy a song like ‘Do You Want To Be Honest?’, because I just know that it’s easier to listen to for a bigger group of people. And sometimes you just don’t want to have tragic sad songs all the time. But I do prefer stripped back in the end, because to me, a good song is just a good song and everything that you add on to it is just because you like to hear that. That’s a bit of my philosophy, I think.
And what about from this EP? Do you have a favourite track?
Ooh. I don’t know. It’s so hard to choose. I think, maybe, it’s ‘Another Year Will Pass’ because it’s the title track of the EP as well and that song really meant a lot for me writing it and, in the studio, the recording process of that one felt so special. I also do really love ‘Trigger’ because it’s so real and because it’s stripped back. So, it’s either of those two. They’re all part of it; it’s really a bundle.
And speaking about ‘Another Year Will Pass’, it’s the only one that hasn’t been released before the EP comes out. So, what’s the story behind that track?
Well, the track actually sums up the whole theme of this whole EP. So, it’s about the passing of time. I was really going through a lot of stuff with myself. Within my therapy, I had a lot of breakthroughs or whatever they call them. And with myself, growing up- I’ll be 28 in a couple of weeks- we all know growing older has pluses and minuses. So, time was really a thing in my head. The passing of time is just such a weird concept, but we all do it because that’s just what our bodies do. We just breathe and we get older. And for ‘Another Year Will Pass’, that song in particular, is just really about, that time will pass and time will heal. How bad it will get, you will stand your ground, and another year will pass. That’s just the only thing that we don’t have to do anything for, you know? Time will pass. The sun will come up. Our lungs will breathe air for us. And that song, it’s also like a very tragic love story -of course, because it’s me, it couldn’t go differently.
For me, of the EP, my favourite track is probably ‘Sit Back Baby’. I think it’s just so comforting. And when I was listening to it, I noticed that you’ve got trumpets, I think, in it?
Oh yeah. It’s also a lot of horns.
Yeah, horns! They’re very bright and uplifting, which kind of reflects the message of the track that everything’s going to be okay. When you’re making a song, do you think about how the elements come together to convey that message? Do you think about the little details like that, or is it just kind of natural?
Yes and no. It depends. When I write in the moment, when I’m just me and my guitar – I’m not thinking about these things, I’m just thinking about the story and what’s important to tell. So, I always know when I don’t have to write another line because I’m just like, ‘this is exactly what I wanted to say.’ But as soon as I go into the studio, and I want to produce it with someone or add instruments or arrangements, then of course I think about, ‘okay, but I want it to tell something and how are all these instruments going to tell the story for me now?’ So, no first and then yes.
Yeah, I think that track does it really well. It feels like you’ve had quite a busy year. You were on a Times Square billboard, on tour with Seafret. You’ve had a lot more ears and eyes on you this year. How has that been for you? And does it impact the way you make music, knowing that it will reach more people?
It doesn’t impact the way I make music, but it does affect me as a human being, I think. So weirdly enough, a lot of artists don’t like to be in the spotlight, but we all have this job. So, in a way we want that as well- it’s a weird psychological thing, I believe. This year, for example, I won a prize for an album that I made and that, all of a sudden, made me think, ‘oh, do I need to be someone now?’ Because, in the Netherlands, it’s quite a big thing, you can call it like a Dutch Grammy. I’m still such a small, small artist, you know, that’s how I see myself and I keep seeing myself because I’m just a random girl writing songs. And sometimes I don’t know if I would survive if I would grow really, really big because it almost feels like you have to be someone while I’m just me. It will never affect the way I make music because I only have one way to make music and it’s just storytelling and being me in the music. But sometimes I feel, as a human being, I’m like, ‘do I need to be cool now? I don’t know how to be cool’ So no, it doesn’t affect the music, but it does affect me sometimes a little bit. I’m not sure if it affects me for the better. I don’t believe, as well, for people that it’s a healthy thing to be.
Yeah, it’s not natural to have that many people know who you are.
No, it’s not normal. And I think it’s so weird that people get used to that. I have friends who are way bigger than I am and I’m like; how do you get used to this?
Yeah, how do you manage that.
Yeah. And I cannot imagine walking in the Albert Heijn, which is a supermarket here, and then someone goes, ‘hey, Neomi, do you want to take a picture?’ I’m like, ‘uhhh I’m just choosing my vegetables at the moment…’
Yeah, that must be strange. Musically, I think you draw a lot of comparisons to people like Phoebe Bridgers. But for you, who are some artists that you feel like have an influence on your work?
Overall, I think it really starts with old folk music. I grew up with Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell and Carole King and Nina Simone and listening to old folk stuff. So that really made me realize I wanted to do music because that’s how I fell in love with it. But I think, in the modern world, I just adore artists like Bon Iver, Laura Marling, Julia Jacklin and Billy Marten. I love their music, and they inspire me not in the way that I want to do the same thing as they are doing – because I also love artists like Dijon, like soul stuff – it’s not that I want to make that music, but they just inspire me because the music makes me feel something.
And finally, what’s your favourite fruit?
My favourite fruit? Okay, so I love this- wait, let me look it up. So, I love passion fruit. Is that how you say it? We call it ‘passievrucht’.
Yeah, passion fruit.
Yeah, I love that one. And I also love that one- the bigger one, it looks like a kiwi, but it grows on tropical islands. I don’t know how you call it. Anyway, let’s go for passion fruit.