The forthcoming record, titled Ghost Globe, centres effectually a platonic suspension-up that informed much of Aquilina's songwriting this year. Whilst several tracks nod to her roots in folk-influenced pop, her close-knit quarantine songwriting posse fostered the confidence to explore a more diverse range of dramatically different sounds.

Revealing the project on her social media accounts, she besides took time to reflect on the message she posted announcing her retirement. "[Iv] years ago I was so depressed I idea I would never release music again and today I appear my seven-track EP is coming out next week," she said. "The growth... we love to run across it."

Previously released singles "Tobacco In My Sheets" and "Psycho" will nestle alongside new tracks "Swap Places", "All-time Friend", and a further three tracks as yet unheard.

The now independent singer/songwriter tells us about the EP, alongside the changes she'south made to her career since her fourth dimension off the grid.

All-time FIT: Why was "Bandy Places" the song you chose to come up back with for this EP?

AQUILINA: To be honest, it was the first i that was ready! Over quarantine, I unintentionally made this EP. I didn't really know what I was doing until information technology was washed. "Bandy Places" was the first 1 to exist prepare, and I was actually excited about it. My approach over the past ii years has been that if at that place's a song I'one thousand excited near, I put it out without thinking virtually it. This time, there is a whole project coming around information technology, but it felt correct to get with that 1.

It's been interesting following your career, seeing how yous wanted to step back from music and so felt like you lot couldn't stop!

I was such a drama queen when I said I was quitting forever! I had no idea the hold that music actually has on me. Looking back, at that place was no manner that that was ever going to happen, but y'all know how it is when you're depressed and you accept something in your head – you tin't meet it another way when you lot're in it.

Have you found a way to balance your career now so that information technology takes less of an emotional toll on y'all?

I definitely think I'm in a better balance. Existence completely contained is a thing that really helps me; to know that I have control over everything and I have the final say. That'south been a huge difference and has made it feel a lot amend. Release days still really stress me out, and I get really broken-hearted. Once it's been out for a solar day, then I love information technology and I'm happy I did it. The trade-off is those two days where it'south being released, and I feel sick constantly! It is worth it in the finish.

Do y'all call up existence a little older helps, given that you've been in the public centre since your teens?

Absolutely! I had no idea what I was getting myself into at the time. I know every seventeen-year-old thinks that they have it all together and they know what they're doing – I was so confident when I was a teenager! I sometimes wish that I could get that back. I had no idea the toll it was actually taking, and how much piece of work I was making myself practice at that age as well. On height of school, the corporeality of social media that I made myself do… I didn't create a fun infinite for myself. It became quite toxic very rapidly. I really struggled with separating myself from the make. I got a bit lost on the mode, and it was of import for me to take that time off beingness an artist to notice who I was outside of that again.

Did you find writing in that flow dissimilar, when you lot weren't intending to release music nether your own name?

Yeah! It took me a minute to get used to it. When I first started doing it I took six months doing writing sessions vi days a calendar week, meeting new people every day, and becoming a bit of a automobile. In a way, I retrieve I needed to do it to disassemble some of the emotion from writing, to make it so that I could but write whenever. I had to go fully the other way to be able to come back into my emotions and write from a personal place over again. It changed how I write now, and it really opened my eyes to collaboration and how collaboration is supposed to do. It gave me a lot more diversity in my writing too. When I was signed, every time I was writing a song I was thinking so much near my audience and what they wanted – especially after my showtime EP with "Fools" and "Male monarch" did so well. For a while, I was thinking, "I need to requite people another 'King'." I had to unlearn that, which writing helped me too.

You mention diversity of songwriting there, is that something nosotros tin look to be showcased on this EP?

I think and so! It has quite a diverse sound for me. In that location's a couple of songs on there which people might not expect from me, which excites me and I feel proficient most. It feels completely different, like a consummate refresh, which is really fun. It'southward a seven-track EP, only "Psycho" and "Tobacco In My Sheets" are on it, and then five new ones. It's called Ghost World because a few of the songs and the full general theme of the EP were inspired by my all-time friend ghosting me at the first of this yr. I've been writing about that all year, considering information technology was a huge heartbreak.

Friend break-ups can be equally emotionally devastating, if non more, as romantic break-ups!

I totally agree. It's then weird because you're not supposed to be as sad every bit you are. That was a huge influence on my writing this year. Information technology was all I could think about most of the time, so that'southward got a big presence in the EP. The other songs on the EP are about people from my by. I've always had this image in my head of this procession of ghosts that I take with me everywhere considering I think about the past so much. I feel like I deport all of these people that are not in my life with me everywhere I go.

Single "All-time Friend" obviously touches on some of the topics you mention there, can y'all tell the states a bit more than nigh it?

It'due south the most on the olfactory organ, real vocal – just a very true story-telling of what happened. Information technology'due south more sad, and more than folk-influenced, but information technology's a building song. The instrumental grows and grows towards the finish, so it's not only a piano ballad.

Who have you lot been working with on this EP?

I was quarantined in LA with my beau, Marcus Andersson, and my friend Caroline Pennell. Caroline is an incredible songwriter and Marcus is an incredible producer. We had this little studio in our backhouse, and we started writing the 3 of u.s., 'cause obviously, we couldn't write with anybody else! Nosotros'd really never worked as the three of us before, just it became this insanely magic collaboration squad. I've never had something like that, where I felt similar I was part of a writing team.

In one case nosotros were a couple of months into quarantine information technology only flowed and so well; it was simply so like shooting fish in a barrel to write with them, and I think it gave all of us such artistic freedom considering we were all so comfortable with each other. They are both heavily involved in the EP, then information technology's not a ring as such, but it does feel like a little group!

What can yous tell us most the EP tracks we oasis't heard however?

The starting time vocal is called "Fuckedupminddd", and information technology's a 90s, Avril Lavigne-influenced, grungy pop song. The opening line of that vocal is: "I planned my young man's death," which I really love. As soon as I wrote that, I wanted that to be the opening line of the whole EP. That one is definitely a new sound for me, and something the people won't take heard from me before. I'm actually excited about that. It touches on the themes of "Psycho". One of the chorus lyrics is: "It gets dark in here," – basically saying my head can go really dark and really weird. I have presented this online image of myself every bit being 1 fashion, and sometimes I feel like a liar, like I'm non a good person. The song explores that topic.

The second song is my favourite song on the EP, it's called "Latest Ghost". It is the merely vocal on the EP that I wrote 100% myself, which I don't practice very often these days, but I'g trying to go back into it. It's such a good feeling when you know that a song is a pure version of you that hasn't been diluted in any way. I wrote information technology at the piano quite late on – information technology was a last-minute addition to the EP. It started as a poem that I'd written ii months before, so one twenty-four hours I sat downwards at the pianoforte and started singing a melody to it. We produced information technology into this big, M83 but with Japanese House influence, wall-of-sound popular song. It'due south relentless! The drums never stop, and information technology's driving. Information technology's my favourite one, so I'g hoping that people are gonna really like it. It's about the same thing – the chorus lyric is: "Miss you the nearly / But yous're but the latest ghost in my drove," – my trivial collection of ghosts that I take with me. It'southward about my all-time friend that I lost, but it's a version of it where I'm more at peace and accepting of it. It's a nice dissimilarity to "Best Friend", where I'm very pitiful.

Track 3 is "Psycho", and so we accept our little pop bop moment, and then track four is called "Teenage Self". It'due south the about introspective I get on the EP. It's more of an interlude, not really a full vocal, and information technology's another one that started as a poem I wrote. I wrote this poem to my teenage self about a very calumniating relationship I was in as a teenager – a really fucked upwardly situation. It'due south me saying to my teenage cocky, "I'm so sorry that I let you become through that, only I'chiliad out the other side." The lyric is: "I'm speaking from the other side / It'south a pretty fell ride / But you're safety." It's letting her know that it does work out in the end, only it's a journeying to go there. She is gonna be okay. Sonically, we put loads of weird nature sounds on it. We wanted to brand information technology feel like it was a message in a dream – super introspective and emo!

Then we go into "Swap Places" – picking it upwardly – and then into "All-time Friend" and "Tobacco In My Sheets". There's a lot going on in at that place, only somehow I recall it all works together as a projection. When I listened to it all for the get-go fourth dimension, front to back, information technology felt similar a project. It all comes from the same voice and the same place in my life.

It'south really interesting how quarantine has given so many people the space to be creative once more, or in new ways.

I would not have fabricated this EP if quarantine hadn't happened! Not that I am glad that the pandemic happened, but I didn't even realise I was making it until I was halfway through doing it. That's been actually absurd, and so fun to feel like an artist over again: to wake up excited about it, and for information technology to be the last thing I think about earlier I go to sleep. I haven't felt like that since I was seventeen, and it's so exciting, even though it withal makes me anxious! It'southward falling-in-beloved butterflies.

Ghost World is out xiii Nov. "Swap Places" and "All-time Friend" are out at present.