HEADER IMAGE Holly Whitaker
In recent years, cultural nostalgia has settled into neat, calendar-year boxes: 2014 has been monopolised by the indie sleaze revival, while the latest ten-year retrospectives have canonised 2016 as pop’s definitive year. But immediately preceding those timelines sits a more muted lineage, defined less by alt-rock satire or popstar polish, and more by earnestness, handmade aesthetics and emotional immediacy. Think: ukulele covers filmed on webcams, the diaristic writing of Rookie Mag, and the opening illustrated credits of Juno. Named as “hipness purgatory” (a title recently introduced to me by the unrivalled trend reporter Mandy Lee), this late-2000s aesthetic era speaks to a kind of pre-algorithm intimacy that once allowed sincerity to exist without irony.
I thought about this while watching the quietly angelic Ninush support Shura at Bush Hall last year. Her set felt hushed and luminous, led by violin and supported by cello, flute and guitar, the songs drifting into the room rather than demanding attention. It felt at odds with the current appetite for detachment and self-consciousness, and was all the more compelling because of it.
Ninush is a classically trained violinist who came to songwriting gradually, without a fixed plan for how, or even if, the songs would be released. Written during a pause between touring and freelance work, The Flowers I See You In took shape slowly, shaped by time alone and the encouragement of close collaborators. The result is a debut that feels unforced and unselfconscious, grounded in softness without slipping into nostalgia.
Below, Ninush talks about the inspiration behind her debut release, from childhood nicknames and routine cycling routes to her friend’s lino prints and old Disney soundtracks.
Her childhood nickname and time off touring
Ninush’s artist name comes from a place that predates any sense of public identity. It’s a childhood nickname, adapted from her given name, Nina, and shaped by her family heritage. “My mum is Polish, and in Polish they add ‘-ush’ or ‘-usha’ to names to make them cuter,” she explains. “My grandparents would call me Ninush or Ninusha growing up.”
Many of the EP’s earliest songs were written with no audience in mind. “It was still very much a hobby,” she says. “I didn’t put too much pressure on it being a thing.” It was only after encouragement from friends that the idea of releasing the songs began to take shape. That included a support slot at The Windmill in Brixton, followed by a nudge from her friend Charlie Wayne, who she met while touring as a violinist with Black Country, New Road. What had started casually, and largely in private, gradually became something she allowed to exist in public.
Still, hearing strangers use a name once reserved for family feels strange. “In hindsight,” she laughs, “having people I don’t know call me by my childhood nickname does feel quite intrusive.” It’s a small joke, but it reflects the tension between tenderness and exposure that lingers throughout the EP.
Grief and plant genetics
The EP takes its title from a lyric in track two, ‘Tormentor’ – “I’ll clean and I’ll clean and I’ll clean / until I get a glimpse of the flowers I see you in” – but its meaning runs deeper. Several tracks grapple with grief, shaped by the loss of Ninush’s father when she was young. “He worked in plant genetics; he bred flowers,” she explains. “We still have some of the flowers he made, and that’s always been a nice reminder of him.” Rather than spelling out loss directly, the EP lets these symbols sit gently in the background as memories that surface without being summoned.
The image of flowers became the invisible thread tying the project together, with the artwork arriving fully formed towards the end of the process. “It actually came quite late,” she says. “I was drawing ideas for the artwork first, and then afterwards the lyrics attached themselves to it.”
I cycled past a boat called Tormentor. I’d never really thought about that word before, and that’s where the song came from.
Lino prints and imperfections
The EP’s artwork reflects the same resistance to polish found in her music. Ninush drew the original artwork herself, returning to drawing as a familiar creative outlet alongside the writing. Wanting to preserve its handmade quality, she later asked her friend Katie Broderick to turn the image into a lino print. “I wanted it to feel quite playful, and not too polished, which is how I feel about the music,” she says, before admitting: “I realised I probably could have done it myself, but I was too scared I’d mess it up.” This visual language helped anchor the EP in something tactile and handmade, rather than slick or overworked.
For the video accompanying ‘Tormentor’, Ninush worked with an animator friend to create a series of illustrated scenes, guided by a loose, children’s book–like storyboard. Rather than offering a literal narrative, the animation echoes the EP’s tone: soft, imaginative and led by feeling over finish.
Cycling, solitude and a change of pace
Much of The Flowers I See You In was written during a period of enforced stillness. After finishing a long stint of touring as a violinist, Ninush moved back home and found herself with time, and quiet, for the first time in years. “The pace of my life changed completely,” she reveals.
She began writing while cycling between violin students, deliberately leaving her headphones behind. “I’d make sure I wasn’t listening to music,” she explains. “I spent a lot of time just with my own thoughts.” Ideas came and went mid-journey, sometimes captured as voice notes, sometimes lost all together. One song emerged directly from those rides. “I cycled past a boat called Tormentor,” she recalls. “I’d never really thought about that word before, and that’s where the song came from.”
While much of this period was solitary, it was balanced by the support of long-time collaborators and former Guildhall classmates who encouraged her to keep going, even when the project was still taking shape.
Film scores and instrumental characters
Although Ninush doesn’t cite lifelong songwriting influences, soundtracks have played a key role in shaping the EP’s atmosphere. She spent time listening to film scores, particularly the score from Poor Things, but it was older Disney films that left the deepest impression. “Fantasia and the original Alice in Wonderland soundtrack were big inspirations,” she shares. “The arrangements are incredible. The music on its own tells such a story.”
It’s an approach rooted in instrumentation rather than lyrics alone. “Every instrument plays a different role,” she explains. “It’s very theatrical.” That storytelling instinct runs through The Flowers I See You In, where violin, flute and cello aren’t ornamental, but central characters. It’s music shaped by classical training, but freed from its rigidity; attentive to detail, yet guided by feeling.
The Flowers I See In You by Ninush is available to stream on Spotify and Apple Music now.
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