Aya Yves is feeling the gamut of emotions. Speaking to NME ahead of the release of her second EP ‘serotonin & forget me nots’, which dropped last Friday, the Sydney-based, Canberra-bred artist is “excited” but “overwhelmed” by the prospect of sharing such a personal project.
“These songs were a place for me to feel what I needed to feel. They acted as a safe little space that I had all to myself where I could just let what I needed to out,” she says. “Once they’re out, they’re not just your secret anymore. There’s something really beautiful about that. But the relationship changes, and you just have to restructure how you see the music. It’s not just yours anymore.”
Across the five tracks on ‘serotonin & forget me nots’, Yves expands on the soundscapes and subject matter of 2021’s ‘What We Look Like With The Lights On’, her first release as Aya Yves (after a past musical chapter under the moniker Vendulka, her first name). On that EP, her pain is more visceral. The highlight ‘Dear E.’ captured Yves’ emotions immediately following the news of her sister’s terminal cancer diagnosis.
Two years on, she’s working through the stages of grief for her late sister, offering a bigger-picture view through her lyrics on ‘serotonin & forget me nots’. Similarly, the EP’s production (which comes from Beso Palma, Ben Oldland and Xavier Dunn) is more expansive, straddling the line between brooding pop and glitchy electronica.
“I want my legacy to be soft and welcoming, and vulnerable and strong, and to show that you can do both”
Great pop music builds on the giants that have come before. Yves points to a trio of artists – Caroline Polachek, London Grammar and Bon Iver – as the primary influences on both the EP and the Aya Yves project as a whole: “They’re artists that I’ve loved for so long and really look up to.” She captures London Grammar’s ability to build towards a cathartic crescendo on ‘unfortunate fools’, while the deft use of melodies on the poignant ‘white flag’ evokes the high points of Polachek’s discography.
Lyrically, ‘serotonin & forget me nots’ contains a lot of emotional weight. At its core, the project revolves around trauma, and the processing necessary to reach a place of acceptance. ‘white flag’ captures Yves’ realisation of how her parents were shaped by their experiences growing up in a post-WWII Czech Republic (a “moment where her frontal lobe fully developed”), while ‘vertigo’ is about the day her sister passed away.
These experiences are sublimated in the music. “You wouldn’t look at the lyrics and be like ‘that’s what this is about’,” she explains. “But I wanted it to feel messy and weird and angry and loud, and all over the place, because that’s what that day was like.”
Yves is forthcoming when speaking about the emotional benefits of creating the project. “[Grief’s] not something that I ever will leave behind. It’s something I carry with me. But I feel like I’m kind of through the thick of it,” she says. “I feel like there’s more good days and bad days, and I have learnt how to carry it for the most part.” The title of the project alludes to this coexistence of sadness and joy: the forget-me-not a flower of remembrance, serotonin the chemical that controls our happiness.
“Artists are so scared to talk about the realities of [touring], because they don’t want to give up the façade of success”
To celebrate the release of the EP, Yves is heading out on tour – and she’s not shying away from the current realities of touring as an independent artist. Writing on Instagram when announcing the tour, she told fans: “A combination of consumer confidence, rising costs of living and the return of international artists touring the local market means emerging local artists are having to weigh up the risk of going ahead with headline shows, that often cost thousands of dollars just to open the doors.”
She’s similarly forthright when talking to NME about the upcoming eight-date tour: “The goal is break even. If I break even? I’ll be stoked.”
There can be a sense of trepidation whenever artists – even the well-established ones – discuss these topics (see when respected Australian rapper Urthboy posted in April about having to cancel shows on his final Australian tour for the first time in his career). “Artists are so scared to talk about the realities of [touring], because they don’t want to give up the façade of success,” Yves observes.
“You don’t want to look bad to the industry. You want agents, you want labels, you want managers, you want all those people to think you’re doing so well, and you’re on this wave of success that they just have to jump on board.”
Yves is acutely aware of the industry games that she has to play – but she’s also crystal clear about her mission as an artist: balancing strength and vulnerability, and giving listeners a space to feel.
“I want to create a space where I’m really vulnerable and people can feel those things they need to and have the release they need. That’s not to say that every single project is going to be really sad. It’s more that if you want to feel happy and dance about something, this is the space. If you want to cry and be sad about something, this is the space for that.
“I want my legacy to be soft and welcoming, and vulnerable and strong, and to show that you can do both.”
Aya Yves’ ‘serotonin & forget me nots’ is out now. Her Australia tour begins May 11 – find more info at her official website