As beautiful as it is brutally raw, ‘Anyway, how are you?’ aches inside and out as Eden Rain charts a romance’s journey from beginning to end, bringing love itself under the microscope as the English singer/songwriter examines her most intimate, intense emotions and the experiences that brought them to life.
Stream: “Great Nothing” – Eden Rain
Listening to an Eden Rain EP feels, in many ways, like you’re having an intimate heart-to-heart with a close friend.
Only in this case, you’ve (probably) never actually met the person you’re talking to, and actually, they’re doing all the talking… or singing.
Still, Rain’s candid, conversational approach to music and songwriting makes us feel not only like we’re a welcome part of her inner sanctum, but also like we’re not alone in our own struggles – whether or not they mirror hers. The English singer/songwriter’s third EP exemplifies this familiar intimacy, finding Rain spilling her guts though tender songs that seduce the ears and stir the soul.
As beautiful as it is brutal, Anyway, how are you? aches inside and out as Eden Rain charts a romance’s journey from beginning to end, bringing love itself under the microscope as she examines her most intense emotions and the experiences that brought them to life.
Looking half a stranger
In the puddles on the pavement
Run the tightrope, flirt with strangers
No man’s land is where I’m safer
I’ve been in this game for ages
Never noticed you were playing
Making rules up as you go
Why couldn’t you just keep it hidden?
If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it
When you wanted more, I didn’t
Now we won’t ever find
our way back to where we were
The great nothing, great nothing
Released November 15th, 2024 via APOLLO Distribution, Anyway, how are you? is a stunning display of raw humanity from one of the UK’s most exciting singer/songwriters. A staple of Atwood Magazine‘s pages literally from day one (Adrian Vargas described her debut single “Wake Up, You’re Stuck” as containing ‘incomparable artistry’), Yorkshire-born, London-based Eden Rain has swiftly established herself as a true needle-in-the-haystack kind of artist over the past three years, blending a soulful alt-pop sound with breathtaking lyrics that melt candid reflections, colorful observations, fantasy and reality all into one.
Atwood Magazine ranked 2023’s sophomore EP But I’m Alright Now as one of the year’s best releases, praising it as “an intimate and unfiltered set of sonic diary entries full of raw passion, spirited energy, and uncompromising authenticity” in our accompanying EP / artist feature. “Simply put, these songs make introspection fun,” we wrote at the time. “They’re light, yet dark; tender, yet full of rough spots and edges that remind us of life’s complexity, its brutality, and its unpredictability… Eden Rain dares us to dig as deep as we can – to dwell in our own warm, wondrous depths, and join her on a journey of breathtaking, soul-stirring self-reflection.”
One might argue that Anyway, how are you? picks up where its predecessor left off – albeit with Rain opening up, digging deeper, and diving even further into herself and her feelings than ever before. What makes this EP feel like its own world, on the other hand, is its loose story-like structure – how Rain brings to life the all-too familiar messy, human elements of an intimate relationship.
“Overall, this EP charts the process of a relationship,” she tells Atwood Magazine. “The competing of insecurities, the yo-yoing between wanting more from someone but then feeling like you’re not enough, the frustration, protectiveness and love. I guess it’s got a little bit of everything.”
“I wrote all these songs focusing on what I was feeling at that specific time, not necessarily planning it on a wider scale,” she adds. “So when deciding on the EP it felt right that it was a kind of patchwork of snapshots in time. My songs and visions for songs always change when making them, but I like that best.
For Rain, her own personal growth and change between But I’m Alright Now and Anyway, how are you? happened in large part behind the scenes, and has as much to do with what we do hear, as what we don’t.
“Every EP I make, I feel like I get braver at telling my own stories and being more introspective, rather than writing about situations I’ve seen in friends and films, etc.,” she explains. “The more I write, honestly, the slower and pickier I get, because I think I’m trying to curate a bit more?”
“At the end of last year, I wrote a list of bad things that had happened, because genuinely it was slightly comical how loads had gone wrong in quite quick succession… The irony was that whilst there was loads of bad stuff, I a) had loads to write about and b) was simultaneously having really joyful, exciting times. So, this year brought about a lot of change for me, and I always think the first place I process change is in my writing.”
Keeping all of that in mind, Rain candidly describes Anyway, how are you? as a record of mess and love.
The EP’s title is a brutally honest reflection on her own tendencies.
“Embarrassingly, I feel like I’m often caught in situations with friends where someone asks how I am (probably expecting me to say ‘yeah, fine!’), and I then go on a rant and ramble about everything that someone could possibly need to know about me, including some mild trauma dumping on the way. I’m then left awkwardly backtracking and being like, ‘…sooooo how are you??’”
“When thinking of titles that encompassed the EP, I thought this felt like it was so reminiscent of the way I get carried away in my own stuff – AKA writing a whole EP about complicated introspective feelings. So I guess it’s a self-aware, ‘Thanks for listening to me sing about boys who are mean to me, how are you?’ title.”
The twenty-minute journey from “Closer” to “Two Moons in Toulouse” is tight and turbulent, filled to the brim with emotional upheaval and rich, radiant melodies. Every track stands out for different reasons, but notable highlights include the achingly intimate “Great Nothing” (a candid, heartfelt exhale of sorrow and frustration mourning the rise and fall of a frienduationship), “Crashmat” (an honest, impassioned eruption about Rain’s own pending implosion), and “Figure it out” (a feverish, sonically and emotionally charged eruption whose urgent stream-of-consciousness lyrics are as catchy as they are cathartic). Buried in and all around this EP are moments of endless aching and limitless freedom, of hope and heartache, as Rain takes a ride on that rickety rollercoaster so many of us know all too well.
Holding hands and sleeping with the lights on
Christmas day’s come early, get the knives out
Cut my cords to stop the sound
I put my foot so far inside my mouth
You’re gonna need a hacksaw
Fighting in the bar and crying in the taxi
Sick up on my shoes
and you’ll say you’ll leave without me
Tapping on the glass like I’m trying to escape
An aquarium fish on speed back to your place
Wake up from this fight, but there’ll be another
If I want answers, I should ask your mother
What’s your problem?
Why can’t we just figure it out?
“I love all my children (songs) equally,” Rain says, when asked about her own favorites.
“That being said, I love them for different reasons. I cried throughout the whole process of writing ‘Closer.’ I love the coolness of ‘Crashmat,’ the excitement of ‘Figure it Out,’ the passion of ‘Great Nothing,’ and the fact that I wrote ‘Taking’ in my first ever session with Ed and we knew it was a banger. ‘Two Moons In Toulouse’ may slightly take the cake, just because it’s the first song I wrote that at first I felt was too precious and intimate to me to share, but performing it live and people reacted to it so well made me want to put it out.”
To that end, Rain’s favorite lyrics can be found in the first verse of the EP’s finale: “It’s how you’re raised, it’s not your fault, but you take praise like slugs take salt,” she sings on “Two Moons in Toulouse,” “The things you hate about you, you love about me.”
Ten-thirty in the taxi, I’m so shit at setting boundaries. Looking through me, talking at me, silence never spoke so loudly…
– “Crashmat,” Eden Rain
Eden Rain may be going through it on this record, but she nonetheless holds her head high in delivering what will surely go down, yet again, as one of the year’s best EPs.
From her endlessly alluring lyrical poetry (“I’m all strung out on wishes, I’m running out of eyelashes” from “Taking”) to the bold melodies that inevitably get us in our feelings and singing with her, Anyway, how are you? proves a captivating and compelling reflection of rocky romance.
“Honestly, I just hope someone can find a home and a sense of relatability in one of these songs,” Rain shares. “As someone who googles a specific situation for answers anytime something is wrong or I’m unsettled, it’s really lonely to feel like you’re going through something that no one ever has. Whilst I don’t always manage to solve complex human emotions by using ChatGPT to tell me what to do, I always find comfort in lyrics and songs – and I hope I can do that for someone else.”
Experience the full record via our below stream, and peek inside Eden Rain’s Anyway, how are you? with Atwood Magazine as the singer/songwriter takes us track-by-track through the music and lyrics of their third EP!
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:: stream/purchase Anyway, how are you? here ::
:: connect with Eden Rain here ::
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Stream: ‘Anyway, how are you?’ – Eden Rain
:: Inside Anyway, how are you? ::
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Closer
I wrote this song whilst someone I love was going through grief. I feel like the natural instinct when someone you love is going through pain is to try to drag them out of it. This is kind of about the pain and the patience of learning to try to hold space for someone and hope they come back to you.
Great Nothing
Wooffff… This song is… exactly what’s in the title! It’s about the rise and fall of the common Situationship. It’s about putting all your time and energy and effort into someone who you also feel is doing the same, only for it to disintegrate. It’s the opposite of great love but somehow it feels like it hurts harder when it ends?
Figure it out
A song that’s sort of a sloppy, blurry, drunken rant at a partner. I wrote it with Jack (Dean) and Conway (halfrhymes) on a very cute and special writing trip in the Dales. I have no idea how such an energetic song came out of such a wholesome time but all i can say is – you should have seen how we collectively lost our minds when writing ‘like an aquarium fish on speed back to your place.’
Crashmat
This song was made with Ed and Sofy in Camden earlier this year. I can’t lie – I don’t think I’ve told them this, but I was really excited for this session but also shitting it. I’m a big fan of Sof’s music and was nervous about what to write about, ’cause my life was in a bit of disarray and I was picking up the pieces and feeling super burnt out. So we wrote about that, and what it feels like to feel you’re trying to be all things to all people.
Taking
This song is a lot about going along with a friendship / relationship even though you know they aren’t a great person / they are kind of bad for you. It’s about learning to see someone for who they are. To film the music video we went to the biggest fair in Europe (in Hull) with only a camera and an enormous amount of social anxiety… somehow it all came together in the end!
Two Moons in Toulouse
Not to be dramatic but this is one of my favourite songs I’ve ever made. It’s the first ever ever love song that I’ve made and the purest thing I could do. On one level It’s about how I went and followed a boy to France a few weeks after we first went on a date. On another level it’s about devotion and falling in love for the first time.
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:: connect with Eden Rain here ::
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© Anita McAndrew
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