Cherry i share their new single Arctic Sun, arriving alongside the announcement of their long-awaited debut EP ‘Yes, but I could never tell that lie’, produced by Ali Chant (PJ Harvey, Yard Act, Soccer Mommy), and due out 17th July.
The band’s origin story is one worth knowing. Formed in 2025 by vocalist Nikol Kozin and lead guitarist Anastasiia Haman — two friends who relocated to the UK together following the conflict in their Ukrainian homeland — Cherry i came together almost by design. “I had orchestrated for Nastya to come live with me and my family for a bit,” says Kozin. “She agreed, and so with her in an enclosed space and no other entertainment options, I tricked her into starting a band with me.” Bassist Slava Gudym and drummer Hugh Gordon joined the fold in London, completing the lineup. Since then, the band have quietly built a fierce word-of-mouth rep on the London DIY Windmill scene, clocking up north of 100K streams across just two singles.
Arctic Sun is tense, spectral, and quietly devastating — tightly coiled instrumentation that sits somewhere between melancholic and incendiary, wrapped around Kozin’s piercing vocals. Speaking on the track, she describes it as capturing “what it is like to be in a desperate state of looking for fulfilment in a romantic relationship without complications. Something that on its own can be like addiction” — a sentiment crystallised in the line ‘after you, after you, I quit people’.
Hear Arctic Sun here.
The EP as a whole stretches across a range of emotional and thematic territory. Earlier single The Arsonist navigates themes of war and displacement with atmospheric precision, while the fuzz-heavy Mistake — released late 2025 — turns the lens on the friction of choosing music as a career. “The idea behind the song is essentially a one-way conversation between a person and something inanimate,” Kozin explains, “in this case it is the fraught relationship one can have with music and choosing that as a career path.“
Produced by Ali Chant — a name that carries serious weight given his work with PJ Harvey, Yard Act, and Soccer Mommy — ‘Yes, but I could never tell that lie’ feels like a genuine document of a band finding their voice under pressure. With more live dates on the horizon and new music already brewing, this debut EP is as much a statement of intent as it is a proper introduction.
‘Yes, but I could never tell that lie’ track listing
1. Naked Balloons
2. Arctic Sun
3. Mistake
4. The Arsonist
PRE-SAVE ‘YES, BUT I COULD NEVER TELL THAT LIE’ HERE
Live Dates
June 5th — The Bell, Bath
July 11th — Windmill Brixton, London
July 23rd — Daltons, Brighton
Cherry i Is
Nikol Kozin — Lead vocals, second guitar
Anastasiia Haman — Lead guitar, backing vocals
Hugh Gordon — Drums
Slava Gudym — Bass
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