Australian indie pop band ARCHIE confront the delicate, often painful balance between care and self-erasure on “Nine,” a glistening standout from their new EP ‘Together Apart’ that turns emotional restraint into recognition, release, and hard-won self-understanding.

 follow our Today’s Song(s) playlist

Stream: “Nine” – Archie

Oh, I put my feelings on hold again…

* * *

Learning how to care for others without losing yourself in the process is a delicate, often painful balance – one we don’t always know how to hold.

It can mean biting your tongue to keep the peace, or giving more of yourself than you have left just to keep someone else steady. It can look like shrinking your own needs in the moment, telling yourself it’s easier that way, even when it pulls you further from yourself.

This quiet tension sits at the heart of ARCHIE’s “Nine,” a glistening, emotionally charged indie pop track that turns inward with striking honesty and grace. Drawn from their EP Together Apart, the song traces the push-and-pull between connection and self-preservation, capturing a core friction of intimate relationships where empathy can slip into self-erasure.

What kind of game is this
You take me for a ride
I wanna get through it
My bedroom looks like my mind

And I know
We all follow our own convictions
I’m blinded by myself
And haven’t seen for a while

Released in early March, Together Apart marks ARCHIE’s sophomore EP, and a defining step forward for the Canberra- and Wollongong-based quartet – Grant Simpson (vocals/guitar), Olivia Faletoese (bass/vocals), Xandy Wanjura (drums/vocals), and Geromy Houghton (guitar/synth) – whose indie pop sound pulses with melody, movement, and an unmistakable emotional core. There’s a sense of closeness woven through these songs, a feeling of shared experience and lived connection that seeps into every chord and chorus, balancing buoyant, danceable arrangements with an undercurrent of introspection and care.

Where their 2024 debut EP Tell the people you love that you love them laid a heartfelt foundation after years of steady single releases, Together Apart feels more assured, more fully realized – a body of work shaped by growth, distance, and the ties that hold through both. At its center, “Nine” captures one of those unspoken emotional dynamics that so often linger beneath the surface of our relationships – a presence felt more than named, like a ghost moving quietly through moments of closeness and strain alike.

ARCHIE frame “Nine” as both a personal reckoning and a path forward.

“[It’s] a self-reflective journey into learning how to love others and yourself,” Olivia Faletoese tells Atwood Magazine. “I wrote ‘Nine’ as a way to work through my understanding of myself and the people I love… I found myself in situations where I wasn’t able to take care of myself. Making space for other people is something I’ve always done, even to my own detriment. Some of these lyrics are reflective of my own frustrations with myself, and others while also learning to take care of myself better and leaning on my friends.” That duality – inward and outward, self and other – runs through every layer of the song, surfacing not just in its lyrics, but in the way it unfolds sonically.

I won’t ask you a thing
But you’re being unkind
You’re just stuck in your head
And now I’m stuck in mine

Oh, I put my feelings on hold again
Oh, I wore my heart on my sleeve again

It begins with a crystalline guitar line – bright, fluid, and instantly immersive – setting a tone that feels both weightless and emotionally charged. When the first verse arrives, there’s a sense of disorientation just beneath the surface: “What kind of game is this / You take me for a ride / My bedroom looks like my mind,” Faletoese sings, blurring the line between physical space and internal chaos. The instrumentation stays light on its feet, but there’s tension in the phrasing, in the way the melody stretches and pulls against itself. “I won’t ask you a thing, but you’re being unkind,” she confesses, laying bare the quiet compromises and internal fractures that come with loving deeply but unevenly. “You’re just stuck in your head, and now I’m stuck in mine.”

These feelings snap into focus in the chorus, where the emotional core lands with full force: “Oh, I put my feelings on hold again / Oh, I wore my heart on my sleeve again.” It’s a confession that feels both weary and cyclical, underscored by swelling harmonies and a rhythmic lift that gives the moment an undeniable urgency. As the song progresses, that opening guitar motif returns like a thread weaving everything together – a steady, shimmering presence that mirrors the push and pull at the heart of “Nine,” where vulnerability and restraint exist in constant conversation.

Who am I to say
I’m fighting gravity daily
And I bite my tongue
so you can get your word out
you never told me to do that for you

I won’t ask you a thing
But you’re being unkind
Your just stuck in your head
And now I’m stuck in mine

Oh, I put my feelings on hold again
Oh, I wore my heart on my sleeve again

That friction doesn’t resolve so much as evolve. As “Nine” moves forward, Faletoese’s voice carries a growing sense of awareness – “Who am I to say I’m fighting gravity daily” – a line that captures the visceral weight she describes so vividly, that feeling of heaviness, of being pulled down by your own instincts even as you try to rise above them. There’s a quiet resilience embedded in the song’s later moments, too: “Stand up, it takes time to learn what they might find is easy,” she urges, reframing vulnerability not as weakness, but as effort, as practice, as something earned over time. Even in its most introspective passages, “Nine” never loses sight of forward motion. It acknowledges the patterns, the missteps, the ways we fall short – and still reaches for growth, for clarity, for connection.

That’s what makes “Nine” resonate so deeply: It doesn’t pretend to have the answers. Instead, it sits with the tension, honors it, and gently pushes through it. ARCHIE tap into a deeply human experience – the instinct to give, to hold space, to love fully, even when it costs you – and reflect it back with care and precision. In doing so, they offer more than just a song; they offer recognition, a mirror for anyone who’s ever struggled to balance their own needs with the needs of someone they care about.

Stand up
It takes time to learn
what they might find is easy
Stand up
Take it all, try again
And find that feeling

I can’t tempt you
To see my world
You won’t understand
And darling
I won’t wonder (love in numbers)
Namesake questions (no more guessing)
I Feel alive again

“This EP marks a big change for ARCHIE – we’ve had a big season,” the band share. “This music reflects our growth as a band when the music brings us together but we’re physically further away.”

Aching in all the right ways, “Nine” recognizes that learning to love well is also learning when to stop disappearing inside someone else’s needs.

It’s a song of fracture, care, and self-recognition – the sound of a band growing closer through distance, and of Faletoese finding language for the weight she’s been carrying. It stands as one of Together Apart’s most affecting moments, not because it resolves its central conflict, but because it understands it so completely.

ARCHIE recently sat down with Atwood Magazine to talk through the care, conflict, and connection behind “Nine” and Together Apart – and how this new chapter is bringing them into sounds that feel, in their words, “both fresh and like home.” Read our conversation below, and get lost in the warm embrace of “Nine,” the kind of song that meets you exactly where you are, then helps you stand back up.

Oh, I put my feelings on hold again
Oh, I wore my heart on my sleeve again

Stand up
It takes time to learn
what they might find is easy
Stand up
Take it all, try again
And find that feeling

— —

:: stream/purchase Together Apart here ::

:: connect with Archie here ::

— —

A CONVERSATION WITH ARCHIE

ARCHIE: Our music is about having fun and enjoying life with the people you love. We like to make indie pop rock music to listen and dance to.

ARCHIE: Our drummer’s dog was named Archie, and he used to hang out at all our rehearsals! We used his name because his fun and loving energy matched us and we miss him a lot!

ARCHIE: We are really proud of our debut EP Tell the people you love that you love them. It was our first endeavour to put together lots of elements that really feel like us plus a very special feature with our good friend Koebi Faumui.

ARCHIE: In terms of musical inspirations, we love listening to Parcels, Ball Park Music, San Cisco, Spacey Jane and Lime Cordiale. We’re also inspired by and proud of our local music scene with Artists such as Stella Eve and Smart Casual.

ARCHIE: This EP marks a big change for Archie, we’ve had a big season. Some of our band now live in Wollongong while some still based in Canberra and this music reflects our growth as a band when the music brings us together but we’re physically further away.

ARCHIE: “Nine” is a self-reflective journey into learning how to love others and yourself. I (Liv) drew a lot from my personal experiences, and I wrote “Nine” as a way to work through my understanding of myself and the people I love.

ARCHIE: I found myself in situations where I wasn’t able to take care of myself. Making space for other people is something I’ve always done even to my own detriment. Some of these lyrics are reflective of my own frustrations with myself and others while also learning to take care of myself better and leaning on my friends.

ARCHIE: I sometimes find that I don’t cope well in stressful situations and my lyrics represent my tendency to shut down or feel heavy.

ARCHIE: “Nine” is the first song led by Liv and it fits into the Together Apart narrative by exploring how, as a band, we feel closer than ever. We’re growing into new sounds that feel both fresh and like home.

— —

:: stream/purchase Together Apart here ::

:: connect with Archie here ::

— —

Stream: “Nine” – Archie

— — — —

Connect to Archie on
Facebook, TikTok, Instagram

Discover new music on Atwood Magazine

 © Meg Houghton

:: Today’s Song(s) ::

 follow our daily playlist on Spotify

:: Stream Archie ::