“When I was in my teens, I felt so voiceless,” says musician Paris Paloma who, in a rare quiet moment ahead of the release of her sophomore album , is taking stock. Her astronomic rise has seen her through scribbling lyrics in her Derbyshire bedroom, to releasing “Labour”, her 2023 mega-hit (more than 750 million streams on Spotify alone) about the emotional and domestic labour expected of women in heterosexual relationships, to heading on a near-sold-out global tour. “Looking back, ‘Labour’ felt like an arrival of [my] voice,” the 26-year-old reminisces now, three years on from that dreamlike breakout.

But as with any piece of art that blows up, its meaning can become flattened over time. On the new album, Paloma attempts to invite nuance. “There are themes of what it is to love a man while fighting the patriarchy,” she says, citing feminist theorists such as bell hooks as inspiration. “This album is a lot messier and a lot more vulnerable,” she says, resplendent in her powder-blue babydoll dress, matching eye shimmer and bare feet, looking like a forest nymph who accidentally landed in the corporate-grey room of a Pimlico hotel. Her debut LP, , served more as a manifesto of sorts, but is “less observational and is very much an outpouring of how I feel”. A lot of the songs, she adds, “are written about unhealed things” because, after all, she’s still in her 20s, trying to navigate modern life like the rest of us.

Paloma’s analogue approach keeps her grounded. She has a blanket ban on AI, paints often and lives on her own terms. It’s a way of life that is intrinsically linked to her feminism. “I just want to exist as a soft, hairy animal,” she laughs, her long hair cascading down the back of her chair. Raised in the Derbyshire countryside, Paloma had a childhood of mud pies and plum trees. She listened to Joni Mitchell and devoured The Lord of the Rings. Now based in Brighton, she’s lost none of the whimsy and earthiness of her upbringing and refuses to be dictated to, through the male gaze or otherwise: “The way that we all individually behave is what creates the cultural norm.”

Styling: Honey Sweet Elias. Embellished ribbon dress: Simone Rocha. Hair: Roku Roppongi. Make-up: Claire Urquhart. Nails: Michelle Class. Tailor: Claire O’Connor.