EFÉ: “ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS HAVE FUN”
VOCAL GIRLS writer Caitlin Chatterton caught up with bedroom pop newcomer EFÉ to chat about festivals, friends, and the release of her sophomore EP, VITAMIN - C.
Dublin-based Anita Ikharo - aka EFÉ - self-released her debut EP in 2020. The dreamy, six-song project ‘What Should We Do This Summer?’ introduced the world to her ethereal voice against charming, bedroom pop production. Now, she’s fresh off the Glastonbury stage and set to release her follow up, ‘VITAMIN - C’.
“Glastonbury was a completely new experience,” EFÉ grins. “We had to camp, and it was intense because I had to get ready in the camping area! We performed twice, and the first day was definitely a ‘figuring it out’ day, but then I was like, ‘woah, all you have to do is have fun! It was such a cool experience.” Festivals have also provided an opportunity to play the new record before its release. “Since Glastonbury, we’ve been playing three songs out of five from the new EP,” she explains. “It’s been very fun. When I’m performing I’m thinking, ‘I can’t wait to get to the new songs’, you know?”.
‘VITAMIN - C’ spans five tracks, from the bright and breezy introduction of ‘The Big Show’ to the delicate, layered vocals on ‘Before Sunset’. The EP is notably more confident than its predecessor - EFÉ explains that the more experimental sound was influenced, at least in part, by electronic musician Mort Garson. “There’s [also] this band called The Juliana Hatfield Three, and [they do] very rocky kind of stuff,” she adds. “I just wanted to incorporate everything I was listening to at one time.”
At its heart, though, ‘VITAMIN - C’ is still a bedroom pop record, a genre that EFÉ was most influenced by as a teenager. “It seemed like it was music that could be made,” she explains. “It was achievable, because it was very DIY. I thought, ‘oh, I could do that! I could get some friends and do it myself!’.” I ask what music she was into before bedroom pop took over. “A weird mix!”, she says. “Growing up as a child it was Boyz II Men and Michael Jackson, [because] my parents played their music. As I got my own taste in music it was Beyoncé [and] Christina Aguilera. Then when I got into my teenage years, I was listening to emo music like Bring Me The Horizon, Pierce The Veil, Sleeping With Sirens. Then I entered a K-pop phase. I loved BTS so much, it was bad! And then, late secondary school years, I was into Rex Orange County, listening to more Tyler, the Creator and Clairo. Just very indie bedroom pop.”
In addition to its more experimental edges, ‘VITAMIN - C’ came together with greater cohesion than EFÉ’s debut. “I feel like the first [EP] was very spread out in terms of writing and making the songs,” she muses. “Overall, I had an idea for the themes of the first EP figured out, but the songs came at different times and then came together. This one - not that it’s completely thought out to a T - was made in closer proximity, and it was dealing with a lot of codependency stuff. There’s a lot of that - that’s the main theme.”
Codependency with her friends has always been a pillar of EFÉ’s songwriting: both her EPs have been made with their help, with who.killed.romeo co-producing ‘VITAMIN - C’. The collaboration is important to EFÉ: “I feel like we grow together. We’re getting better at the same rate,” she says. “There’s always growth happening and it always makes me want to work with the people I feel most comfortable with. It makes sense, because then I don’t feel shy to bring ideas forward.”
Working with her friends reflects the personal nature of EFÉ’s music; it’s the same quality that encouraged her to add voice notes to her songs. “I think there’s just something very vulnerable about using voice notes and making it real,” she nods. “At the end of ‘Grapes’ I’m saying ‘oh, I can’t do it without someone else’, and it just ties into the whole codependency theme. It’s another cookie, if people want to read into things”. ‘Grapes’, for those confused, was the nickname initially given to ‘Before Sunset’. “When we were making the songs, we were like ‘oh, let’s just use fruit names’,” EFÉ explains. “But some things had to change because I didn’t want to be too predictable!”
‘KIWI’ and ‘LIME’ both held on to their original titles. On ‘KIWI’, EFÉ’s vocals sway over summery production and the first experimental distortions, while ‘LIME’ opts for a restless drum beat and defiant lyric about standing up for yourself. It’s one of EFÉ’s favourite tracks on the EP, alongside ‘Loving Girl’, which was the first that she produced herself. “It was supposed to be a joke!”, she laughs. “I was like, ‘let me just try and make a song, let’s see how easy it is’. I always tried to produce but never got the courage to do it. But I did, and I was sending it to people [saying] ‘look at this, I made this jokey song’, and people actually liked it!”. The track grows from its mellow, acoustic beginnings to an atmospheric chorus, and is arguably the EP’s standout; it’s hard to believe it began life as only a dummy run.
From ‘What Should We Do This Summer?’, the release of ‘VITAMIN - C’ pushes at the boundaries of EFÉ’s musical universe, introducing new sounds to the traditional world of bedroom pop. I ask how future projects might press those boundaries further. “I just want to listen to more music and see what I can bring to my own,” EFÉ shrugs. “I still want to incorporate the synthy, more Garson kind of sounds, but I do also really like the storytelling aspect of songs. Not that I’d make a whole story with a project,” she muses, “but I like when things connect together. I think I want to incorporate that, but right now I don’t know exactly.”
Already, EFÉ has come far from listening to Tyler and Rex on the way home from school: she’s playing the same festivals and collaborating with the same engineers, and has plenty more shows still lined up. With her gorgeous EP practically tailor-made to soundtrack the summer, there can only be more ‘pinch me’ moments on the way.
You can listen to ‘VITAMIN - C’ here:
