Introducing: Merpire

With her new album Milk Pool, Naarm-based artist Merpire dives deep into the messy, magical terrain of emotion, body, and memory — and comes up swimming. Written in the final stretch of a fading relationship, the record is both tender and tactile, moving between introspection and release with playful curiosity. We caught up with Rhiannon Atkinson-Howatt to talk early crushes, sonic experimentation, and reclaiming joy on her own terms.

1. Milk Pool feels like a deeply personal and instinctive record. How did writing through the end of a relationship shape your sense of creative freedom — did it unlock something new in your songwriting?

It’s funny how the first single I released from this record was ‘Premonition’ because that’s kind of what it felt like writing some of the record, a premonition. Writing songs is true sorcery. Often I write without knowing what I want to write, stuff that I need to work through just comes up, seemingly out of nowhere. This was definitely the case with ‘Cinnamon’. I was like ‘Who’s cooking with cinnamon? WTF is that supposed to mean?!’. Then once I’d written the rest of the song, I realised it had nothing to do with cinnamon and that those lyrics were just a jumping off point to get to what I was really trying to say. Same goes for the crushing songs, realising only later that I was wanting to reclaim my own sexiness and desire for desire. I guess the fluidity within the album and the remaining questions reflect how I was feeling at the time, knowing I was moving through something, some change that I didn’t recognise yet.

2. There’s a beautiful fluidity throughout the album — emotionally and musically. Was that sense of looseness and movement something you intentionally chased, or did it emerge naturally over time?

Thank you, yes! I’m so glad you get that from it. Because I was going through some deep changes while writing many of these songs - about my relationship with myself, feelings of self-desire, what was changing in myself that I was wanting to share outwardly - the songs themselves obviously reflected that. They’re unresolved and left with questions.

3. Tracks like “Leaving With You” and “Rosanna” tap into very different emotional textures. How did you navigate the tension between intimacy and playfulness when sequencing or writing the album?

Honestly, and not to toot my own horn, but this comes quite naturally to me. I’m hyper-sensitive and find it easy to access the many facets of what a crush or a relationship breakdown feels like, sometimes to my detriment. I love developing scenes in my mind that match what the feeling is like. In ‘Leaving With You’, I hope people can relate to the vulnerable feeling of being observed when you hear lines like, “I feel like I’m back at school in the hallway scared to look up” in case anyone sees what you’re feeling.

4. You’ve spoken about reclaiming joy and reconnecting with your body after periods of anxiety. How did that healing process influence the physicality or performance aspect of these songs?

Performing my own songs on stage feels more and more like home the more I get to know and trust myself. It’s actually off stage that can feel like performing - for societal and social expectation, day jobs, just existing as a woman. The subtle, conditioned masking as a neurodivergent woman in Western culture adds up over the day, month, year and it’s exhausting. 

There’s a lot of unlearning that I’m finding joy in reclaiming. With therapy, building new habits, medication and acupuncture, I’m learning how to emotionally regulate healthily for the first time in my life! I’m building a new relationship with myself where the performance is something I add to already feeling like a more confident, balanced person that can be celebrated on stage and I’m noticing that I’m unleashing even more of myself, expressing from a place of healing from pain.

5. The album features contributions from some incredible producers and collaborators. What did working with people like James Dring and Ali Chant bring out in your sound that surprised you?

Right?! I’m so lucky!! It was less of a surprise and more ‘I knew it!’ hahaHaving been a big fan of both their work - the darkness, the unpredictability,the lushness they bring to recordings, I thought the ways their brains worked would be similar to the way mine works creatively. James Dring in fact only did ONE pass of my song ‘Bigger’ and it was exactly what I was after. I just sent him the bones of the song - guitar, voice, melody and the main guitar riff as well as a playlist of references to sounds, instrumentation, mood. I then gave him creative freedom to do what he wanted, and yeah, he just nailed it! We finished it off when I went over to London for my first band tour with my now good mates, Irish band, Pillow Queens.

It was a similar approach with Ali Chant when he mixed the album. He totally understood the emotions I was trying to convey from song to song. I guess this is where I was surprised given how different some of the songs are. He shone the light on vulnerability, sprinkled confetti and sparkles over the more romantic, anthemic moments and accentuated the dynamics within songs by pulling drums back in the build up to a chorus to make it pop more.

Both Elizabeth M Drummond who produced ‘Rosanna’ and James Seymour who produced the rest of the record have this kind of intuition too. I’m just such a sucker for clever little moments in songs that push and pull the listener.