Today, London’s Eaves Wilder – one of 2023’s most exciting new music talents – announces the release of her debut EP – Hookey, set for release on Friday 24th March via Secretly Canadian. With the news, Eaves has shared the third single to be taken from the EP, ‘Are You Diagnosed?’.
Hookey details her story so far. Delving into her experience with the British mental health service CAMHS on ‘Are You Diagnosed?,’ she sings of feeling a need to play the system in order to get the help she needed. It’s a tongue-in-cheek dig and a deliberate de-romanticisation of mental illness.
“I first entered the Child and Adolescent Mental Health services – or CAMHS – when I was eleven.” explains Eaves. “Although they did finally help me, and I left at the age of fifteen, ‘Are You Diagnosed?’ is basically a stream-of-consciousness, scream for help rant/report about what it’s like in those awful, quiet waiting rooms, and consulting rooms.
As CAHMS is so dangerously underfunded by the government, the deal is- the closer you are to death, the higher up the waiting list you go. Which on average is around 16 months. And people with eating disorders are competitive anyway, so it’s very easy to look around the waiting room, and think, ‘I need to be the most ill person here. I need to get … ill-er than the girl with the bandages on her arms, or the tube up her nose – or I’ll never get treated. I’m going to make my way up that list.’
The key thing is getting your diagnosis. There’s no treatment until diagnosis. You don’t know what is happening to you. And a lot of people doubt you are ill anyway. They (friends, family, teachers) think that you’re making it all up, I think that’s easier for them. And so the biggest question is, over and over: “Are you diagnosed? Are you diagnosed?”
Listen / Watch ‘I Stole Your Jumper’
Recording, producing and releasing her own music since the age of 16, Eaves Wilder’s honest and deceptively cutting lyrics have earned widespread praise from UK tastemakers, including NME, who included Eaves in their 2023 ‘100 List’, The Sunday Times, Clash, DIY, Dork and The Line of Best Fit, aligning her as one of the UK’s most exciting new alternative talents.
Signing to Secretly Canadian in 2021 – something she waited until she was 18 to do because she thought it would be “uncool” to have her mum sign her record deal for her, Eaves has now swapped her bedroom for the studio, spending 2022 co-producing her debut EP, Hookey with Andy Savours (Arctic Monkeys / Black Country, New Road / Rina Sawayama).
“Hookey is basically about bunking off. I spent most of my teens playing Hookey in the music room at school. That’s where I wrote songs and taught myself instruments. ‘Are You Diagnosed?’ was literally written in the middle of my French GCSE class, and I remember mixing my first demos of ‘Morning Rain’ under my desk in sixth form. Through lyrics, production, or melody, my main thing is always adding as many hooks as possible – or how can I expect people to listen?
My inner dialogue when writing or jamming is MAKE IT MORE HOOKEY!!!! Each song is kind of a different perspective of where I was and why I wasn’t at school, it shows a progression. It started in the hospital when I was unable to speak my mind, and ended with the decision to share the secret songs I’d been making.”
Following turbulent teen years, Eaves Wilder is entering adulthood headstrong yet carefree, channelling her frustrations into the music and starting to live her best life.
Hookey track listing:
- I Stole Your Jumper
- Are You Diagnosed
- Morning Rain
- Connect The Rooms
Connect with Eaves Wilder:
