As one of the hottest new names emerging from London’s vibrant indie scene, Night Tapes have been taking the city by storm since they emerged with their atmospheric dream pop in 2019.
Born from the cathartic escapism of late-night jam sessions between housemates Max Doohan, Sam Richards, and Iiris Vesik, Night Tapes is the sonic lovechild of London’s nocturnal energy. This trio doesn’t just make music—they craft immersive worlds where the unspoken is explored through lush, escapist soundscapes. Drawing from the pulse of nighttime London, the alchemy of genre-blending, and the raw beauty of multi-fidelity recordings, they channel introspection into pure auditory bliss. Their latest EP, Assisted Memories, is a masterclass in this craft, with the opening track “drifting” standing out as an ethereal anthem; Vesik’s vocals soar like a dream over transcendent production, turning the track into a euphoric journey that lingers long after the last note fades.
We caught up with Iiris Vesik, the band’s main vocalist, about artistic influences, the journey towards forming Night Tapes, as well as Vesik’s tips for navigating the male dominated corners of the industry – read on for our full interview.
SheBOPS: We love the band’s new EP, Assisted Memories. How did the concept of honoring and remembering different versions of ourselves come about, and how did it shape the EP sound?
Iiris Vesik: Well, for us, the songs came first. We have a setup, which was in our living room. And there were some songs that you find, in the midst of everything, that just resonate more in this time and space. And so we put them all together, and when I looked at the lyrical content, that’s what I found out – that they were all retrospective.
I think as a lyricist, as a person, I’m in a time of culmination. I got to tie some bows around stuff that happened previously in my life and honor those moments, while still trying to honor the younger version of myself, just going through it all. And that’s how the theme emerged by itself. We didn’t start off with that concept, and we didn’t start off with a plan. So the sound and the lyrics, all of it came simultaneously, I would say.
Your nighttime jams in London with Max and Sam have led to this beautiful dream pop creation. How did those early sessions influence your musical direction?
The house that we were living in when we were all together was the birthplace of Night Tapes. Night Tapes didn’t come out as a concept or a plan. We never really got together and said, “Okay, let’s make a band.” We just happened to start having these jams, which were often escapist because, you know, it’s not too easy being a musician in London right now—or I don’t know if it’s ever been easy to be a musician in London.
But we started to record the atmosphere of that house and what we were doing. We just got excited, and suddenly, we had some songs that we put together. Then the first EP was made, which was Dream Forever in Glorious Stereo. I think we have kept on the track of trying to have Night Tapes as a space where we can just have a good time and try out new things for ourselves.
For example, Max didn’t used to sing that much—he’s primarily a drummer—and through Night Tapes, he’s now become a bassist and a singer. I didn’t use to play guitar that much either; Night Tapes has really taught me how to play guitar. I’ve also gotten to do some more production work. Richie didn’t play keys that much before, but now he’s very into them. He’s more of a lead guitarist—actually, a jazz guitarist. So, the sense of freedom, exploration, and the nighttime vibe and atmosphere where you’re free to just create has been an axiom of our band, and we’re hoping to keep that in place.
You mentioned capturing artifacts of time through analog and digital recordings. Can you share some unique recording techniques or equipment that played a role on the EP?
Well, one of the main axioms for our sound has been a Dictaphone tape recorder that Max’s mom used to have as a yoga teacher. Max brought it to our house, and we just started capturing jams on it when we couldn’t be bothered to set up the studio, so to speak. It really became an asset. As much as we’ve made music, I’ve gained an understanding that there is magic that happens between two worlds. When you have that interaction between the analog and the digital, there’s some kind of magic in that exchange. So now we always try to include unexpected sources of audio—something real, something borrowed—in our music. It’s definitely one of the axioms of what makes our sound.
What was the most challenging track to create on assisted memories and why?
Actually, the main track “Assisted Memories” was the most challenging track. For the longest time, we tried to make this into, like, a “songy” song with choruses and verses and all that, because we really loved the original jam that came out of just jamming with Simeon Jones, who came over one day and did the main synth part—the “do do do do do do”—that one. Max put it through lots of pedals, and we sent it through an amp, like a shit karaoke amp, and recorded that.
There was just some vibe in that, and we could play it over lots of videos, and we just felt the vibes in that, but then we just couldn’t get it to a more conventional structure, I guess. So we decided to let it go, to do its own thing, and it’s become our most explorative and kind of one of my favorite tracks on the album now, because we didn’t try to mold it into something that it wasn’t.
Your music blends tangible lived experiences with the spiritual and metaphysical. How do you balance these contrasting elements in your songwriting and production?
Well, I mean, just trying to balance that in my life. I just love it when there’s something more to the music than just the rule book, you know? I love a little bit of chaos in poetry and art and the erotic. Oh, yeah, the erotic. I love this kinda untamable, just sensual world, which I think is divine.
I just read this book by Audre Lorde, The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House, and she’s got this amazing quote: “The erotic, when released from its intense and constrained pellet, flows through and colors my life with a kind of energy that heightens and sensitizes and strengthens all my experience.” And I think this erotic energy also just strengthens the song.
I always wanna hear something real and mushy and unexpected in a song. So it just has to be there for me. I don’t think we’re gonna do songs without that element because it’s more fun that way.
What do you see as the biggest hurdles women in music are facing today?
I think one of the biggest hurdles is definitely judgment—just having a fixed idea of what you should be like in the music industry, and then being judged if you are that fixed idea or if you’re not. In any case, you’re always in communication with some sort of idea of a woman in the music industry.
For me, the biggest challenge was actually myself, especially when I came to London. I got to study feminism, join a punk band—an all-girl punk band, riot pop—and really explore my beliefs and thoughts that I had brought with me from Estonia to London. I discovered that so much of what I believed was unhelpful.
I had a big fear of breaking technology, a fear of not knowing what I wanted, and a fear of not being professional. But these were just beliefs and fears that had been given to me, and I had to combat and rise above them. Doing the things that I didn’t think I could or should do really pushed me forward.
For me, production is still that place where I feel challenged—and songwriting as well. Nothing has ever come easily. I mean, that’s not entirely true. Songwriting actually comes easy to me now, as does channeling, being in the moment, and improvising. But I definitely sometimes get flashbacks of fear or waves of insecurity that don’t actually belong to me.
I feel like the new generation has less of that because we’ve seen women succeed in production, music, technology, and all of that. Now it’s just about combating that judgment. And, yeah, I definitely need to sometimes combat the judgment in myself, which, again, has been given to me. It’s not my own.
How do you think the representation of female artists has shifted in the music scene over the years?
I’m just so happy that there are more female artists now, or at least that they are seen. There have always been a lot of female artists, but now they’re getting seen because we’ve actively fought for that, and the systems in place have taken in the notion that we need to have more diversity in projects, which is great. It does help when you’re not sure if you can do something, and then you see another woman doing it. You’re like, “No, if she can do it, I can do it.”
The only thing I think we have to battle with is that just because we’ve discussed the problem, doesn’t mean that it’s done. There definitely have been times in my life where I’ve felt really triggered—just people not expecting anything from you because of your categorization in the world. And there are still a lot of people who live in the old world, but I think we are in a new world now, and we can’t do that anymore, where we just assume things. We’re now in a more mercurial place, but it’s good because that just means we need to be able to communicate better. And if we can do that, we’ll just have more fruitful, better working environments.
What moves should the music industry make to become a safer and fair space for women?
Including more women in the music industry and giving them more visibility has helped. All kinds of women need to be included, and we need to establish rules and be open to changing them. The rules should be to have an open mind and to be kind—and to be kind to everyone.
There’s another side to all things fueling aggression in the world, and we can’t take women as the idea they used to be. We can’t take men as the idea they used to be because it traps us—traps us into lies and mind prisons. If you’re always concerned with how you look or, in terms of collaboration, how you come across—if you’re always worried about fitting into the idea of what you need to be in collaboration—then that’s wasted energy. If we can be open to people bringing different energies and treat them with respect, we should be able to negotiate how we want to be treated. That should be a rule—everyone has the right to negotiate how they want to be treated.
That also applies to women treating men because if we don’t treat the man inside us with kindness, how are we going to treat boys with kindness? There’s a lot of transgression left from history because things have been fucked up. Thank God I’m not a woman born ten or twenty years earlier. I’m so grateful to be a woman in this day and age and not earlier.
Do you have any tips for navigating the male dominated corners of the industry?
I would say embrace your yang. I really don’t like the whole dualistic gendered kind of paradigm that we used to have—like, that’s something from the fucking Fifties of how a woman should be, how a man should be. I think everybody has forces within them. I like yin and yang. I just like to divorce the word “feminine” from “female.” You know what I mean? Especially in English, the root of that word is already too tight, and the same goes for “masculine” and “men.”
But I think everybody has different energies and a different mixture of those and the spectrum within those two dualistic aspects of those energies. You need to be able to be yin. You need to be able to receive, to be open, to be filled by God so that you can reach the divine, understand what’s happening, and process it. And you need to be yang—to build structures, communicate with the outside world, make rules, and sometimes, transcend your limits.
In male-dominated corners, I think sometimes you really need to embrace your yang. If someone is treating you in a gendered way, then flip the script and feel like, “I’m a boy as much as you are.” I really like that attitude because it brings a non-gendered approach to a collaboration. Maybe I’m a boy too, but a different kind of boy, bringing softness and the communication needed in this environment.
Because, goddamn, I know boys who are tired of toxic masculine environments with no communication, where no one’s been receptive to their wants and needs, and things go awry. More diverse energies are better for collaboration. But, yeah, don’t let them fucking categorize you, man. Don’t let them do that. Negotiate how you want to be treated with kindness.
Because if we approach toxic masculinity with a sword, it will only fight us back. We need to be able to approach it in a clever, soft way. You know what I mean? And in a way that really highlights that the way men treat women is the way they treat the woman inside themselves. And the same way that I treat men is the way that I treat the man within.
What changes do you want to see in the industry to push gender equality and better representation forward?
I think we just need to keep on doing what we’re doing to see more diversity. It’s so nice to see more women being engineers and more women being in the industry business side of things. The more we see that they have done it, the more we can too, musician-wise as well. Like, the more we see women who are just like, “Of course I can do what I want to do.” I can do whatever the fuck I wanna do, and you can do whatever the fuck you wanna do, and let’s just do whatever the fuck we wanna do.
Right now, we just have to be inclusive of difference and communicate with kindness. So that we don’t have to be stuck in fixed ideas of what we should be. If we can get out of that, if we can communicate in an honest way, if no energy is wasted on trying to be something you’re not, and all energy can go into the actual making of whatever it is you’re making, it’s just better for everyone. That’s what I think.
Assisted Memories by Night Tapes is out now.