Ninush choreographs an intimate blend of classical and experimental on “I Don’t Mind”

It's not often that a musician kicks off their career by being asked to join one of the UK’s biggest bands on tour, but Nina Lim, who goes by her childhood nickname, Ninush, has had a markedly unique beginning.

While still studying classical violin at Guildhall, she was asked to accompany Black Country, New Road on tour, who at this point, were probably the most-talked about new band in London. With the tour came Lim's first experiences playing live outside of a classical setting.

For many, being placed at the centre of London’s alternative scene so early would be a daunting undertaking, but she is quick to praise the welcome contrast that working with members of the prolific Windmill scene provided to the classical world. “It took me out of the little box that I was in, when I finished [touring] with them, I started writing songs,” says Lim. These songs, imbued with a carefree approach borne from moving away from the classical world, would represent her first excursions into experimenting with pop forms.

Playing live, and often spontaneously, at local venues which have been fostering new talent for years, such as the Windmill, Lim attributes the effect it's had to helping her overcome her performance anxiety, while also allowing for the songs to be developed organically, in real time. “No one is hyper-analysing what you’re doing… I think the songs on their own, I never thought were worth doing. In playing them with the band and getting my friends on them, it gave the songs a lease of life.”

Rarely a musician gets to chart their career progression in real-time in this way, with Lim's first two singles, “The End” and “Stardoll” coming from early-days songwriting sessions and moments of live experimentation. They both lyrically pay reference to a period of newfound isolation following touring: “At the time I had moved back home with my mum, which is sort of in the suburbs. It was definitely a weird adjustment, going from a high level of stress and travelling all the time to being in a leafy suburb.”

“I Don’t Mind”, while similarly crafted from the blended orchestration and pop sensibilities of the previous tracks, certainly seems, lyrically and structurally, to reflect the carefree collaboration and live experimentation that fuelled her early excursions into songwriting.

“This is my big pop song. It’s a bit more fun and silly, it’s got a very different feeling [to the first two tracks],” Lim describes. Certainly, when listening to “I Don’t Mind”, you get the impression of an artist eager to explore the boundaries of pop music, with little regard for the pressures of genre convention or the limitations that came with her classical training. Instead, pop and classical approaches are recontextualised and reintroduced to one another in strikingly inventive combinations.

The track quickly moves through a meld of deftly plucked strings and piano, with the accompaniment of meandering vocals that are at times both carefree and expertly harmonised. The video features a collaboration with choreographers Foam Sweet Foam. A first for both parties, with neither having expanded their practice in this manner beforehand. It suggests an artist eager to continue bridging new sounds and creating new sonic worlds, through what seems to be a constantly evolving approach to pop storytelling.

With each new track seemingly mirroring Ninush’s real-time development and experimentations of her songwriting practice, “I Don’t Mind” serves as an exciting benchmark for one of 2025’s breakthrough stars. Her debut EP The Flowers I See You In is set for release February 6.