Alt-pop gem Nina Cobham delves into her long-awaited debut album, Basis of a Pinky Promise, a tender and rewarding collection of cuts. 

Across the past half decade, Nina Cobham has nestled comfortably in the UK scene, finding a sonic sweet spot between soulful R&B and ethereal alt pop, augmenting by her bilingual lyrical approach. The Spanish-British singer-songwriter sounds more assured on her wonderful new debut album, yet simultaneously as subtle and delicate as ever. 

Written across LA, NYC and London, Basis of a Pinky Promise is a rich, retrospective and rewarding body of music that chisels and progresses Cobham’s unique and undeniable sound. Speaking on the record, Nina tells Wonderland, “At its core, this album is about trust, I’ve always struggled with it, but choosing to trust—whether in love, in friendships, or in myself —is so important. A pinky promise is a small thing, but it holds weight to me, it’s an outreached hand from the other person saying, I’m willing, and you can trust me; it’s an action instead of just words. That’s what this record is about. We did a mix of over zoom/facetime and in person sessions, it was happy chaos, but like, everything falling into place so easily kind of chaos.” Below, she takes us through the nine-pronged track-list, one song at a time. 

Listen to Basis of a Pinky Promise…

Read Nina’s thoughts…

“Soft Place to Land”

Bossa influenced, made in LA in beechwood canyon,looking out on the observatory and downtown, end of summer sun…

In my head I pictured like, falling onto a mattress, or a soft landing on a plane, a trust fall back, that kind of thing. The person I was writing these songs about came on my album trip with me, so maybe this kind of inspired the vision and the theme running throughout the album.

“Starting over again… it can be fun but he’ll be who I’m doing it with” – this idea that you can start over and over again without having to get rid of everyone around you (although sometimes necessary), starting over is less scary when you know you’re coming home to your safe person, who softens the blow of surprise bad news and is the first person you want to tell good news to.

“Mejor Contigo (Homesick)”

I love my home, my own space. This song is about having that, but then falling in love and suddenly home not feeling fully like home without that person there. I’m an independent girly, so this feeling was weird to me at first, living in my own studio apartment and enjoying my own company but then feeling like, oh I want this person to be here.

The music video was filmed in my apartment of 3 years, just before I moved out and into a new phase of life. It felt like a love letter to that period of my life, like, immortalising it by having the music video as an ode to it. So much music was written there, I learned so much about myself, and it felt like bringing my listeners into my safe space.

“I’m the Problem”

As a young woman in music who is doing well – from men I’ll hear back, ‘Oh, she’s just doing well because of this or that’ and for a long time I really felt the need to justify myself and prove how hard I’ve worked. I work hard for this and have done for a very long time, I started releasing songs to my soundcloud at 16, started putting on my own gigs then too. The people pleaser in me found myself still inviting some of these people to events because I was trying to rise above it, and appease, and then I wrote this song when I was finally like… why am I doing this? Why am I expected to be the bigger person? Why do I not have these people blocked? I don’t want to do that anymore and I don’t need to do that anymore – I’m always going to be someone’s problem for just existing and doing well, especially as a woman in these spaces some men want to dominate.

“March”

This started with just the guitar loop, which I recorded on my phone and sent to Jack, I wrote the lyrics and saved them for in person recording in LA.

It’s about wanting that person around you all the time, the reciprocation, choosing and being chosen and it all just being so easy, and obvious.

Again, my partner came on my album trip with me, so this ‘I don’t want to go unless I know that you’ll be there’ – all of these songs tie in together, there’s a thread connecting them; I get anxious before I even leave home, my safe space to go on a trip, I want to take you with me, you’re a soft place to land – the theme is throughout. It’s knowing life is better when you’re doing it with them.

“LOML”

I could talk for hours about all of these songs, and the deeper meaning behind them all, but this one especially. It’s about a conversation, about finding your person young, and having this opportunity to hear someone’s experience of losing the love of their life – the losing something so important it alters everything, and then living in the shadow of that decision for a large portion of the rest of your life. Which got me thinking, why don’t people just look after things that are precious before they lose them, it’s this idea that you don’t know what you have until it’s gone. 

This song is the recognising that this person in front of me is the love of my life, that they’re a culmination of everything good that has ever happened to me, and being posed the question; what would I do if I lost that? What a privilege to know that would change my life for the worst, because by having them here right now, my life is so much better. It’s anticipatory grieving, grief being ‘love persevering’. All of these things can be scary to say because it is vulnerable to love in a big way, but I think that’s the only way to do it, all cards on the table, I hope you stay, life without you would be sad.

“Pinky Promise”

“Pinky Promise” came from an idea of; making the decision to being open and willing to risk it all and give everything to a relationship, on the basis of something perceived as ‘childish’ as a pinky promise; choosing to trust fully on the basis of some flimsy, small, demonstration, and taking it seriously. Throwing yourself in at the deep end, without holding back in case you get hurt. It sounds playful and lighthearted but mixed with some lyrics about trust issues and overcoming that, there’s a duality going on but they kind of meet with this playful intersection where it doesn’t sound as serious, it sounds fun and summer-y!.

“Better in Person”

This song feels SO fun to me, like something you listen to on the way over to meet someone at night, we made it in a random studio in London, all the home studios I usually have windows – this place did not so that probably influenced the ‘darker’ vibe. We finished the demo in one day, and a year later almost to the day we re-recorded vocals in LA.

It’s about anxious attachment, new relationships, getting to know somebody and all the feelings of uncertainty at the start of that. Better in Person is about being bad with communication over phone, and preferring real life interactions than small talk over text.

It’s just a fun summer night drive song!! I had a mood board made for this from the first session on the song, in 2022, and in June we did the music video for it, Oliver Hill and the team made it better than I could have even hoped. I’ve written the treatments for the other music videos we did on this project – I have such a vivid vision for everything visual, from when I’m writing the songs, and I need it to look exactly how I have in mind. Not having full control over this was a lovely break from that, and it turned out incredibly. 

“Set Me Right”

“Set Me Right” is such a funny phrase to me, it kind of confuses me but I get it at the same time. I think of it like a parent or teacher using it as a warning or something, I’ll set you right! It fell out of me and I remember going wait let me google this is a thing – the dictionary says it means ‘to stop someone believing something that is not true, or to correct someone by telling them the truth’ – which is what this song is about; I’m apprehensive about this new situation, I can feel myself getting invested but I’m a bit cynical, this could set me back if it goes wrong, so set me right – prove me wrong, show me I can trust you.

This feels like og Nina music to me, it feels like it goes back to Te extraño, pero… but as a more evolved version of myself. I’d done these really fun synths and voice-noted an idea over, then took them into a session with Jack !! This was one of the first ones on the album (which, album wasn’t even on my mind at the point we made this!).

“Es De Verdad (Keep it Going)”

We made this instrumental the same session as “Self Care”, I’m pretty sure! If not it was at a similar time in 2021. It wasn’t revisited until 2023 while making the album. My seasonal depression was subsiding and I could feel the lighter air coming back.

It’s self care’s cousin, it’s about coming out of hibernation, into spring and summer, evenings staying light later, the summer feeling. It’s about reciprocation and excitement in a relationship.