Haim Bassist Este Reveals: New York Living Is Feeding the Band's Fifth Album

Este Haim got married at 39 this year, and she says she now wants to "enjoy married life a bit more, stop and smell the roses." The line came up while she was discussing Haim's next album, and though it sounds like an explanation, it plays more like the tempo she's setting for the band's fifth studio album: no rush.

Haim, made up of sisters Danielle, Este, and Alana, released their fourth studio album, "I Quit," last summer, followed by a surprise appearance at Glastonbury 2025 and a fall run through North America and the UK. Asked about progress on the new album, Este told NME: "The Haim business never stops, it's seven days a week. We're always writing, always thinking about what the next song is going to be."

That said, she admitted the three sisters plan to pump the brakes for a while and actually live their lives first. "I want to live in it for a bit, experience life." The interview was actually built around Este's work scoring the new Bella Ramsey film "Sunny Dancer," a project she composed alongside Zachary Dawes, who has previously worked with Lana Del Rey and The Last Shadow Puppets.

Asked about her source of inspiration, Este's answer was specific: New York. She described reconnecting there with college friends she hadn't been able to see much before, saying, "the moment you step outside, you're in it, whether you like it or not, you're swept up in that flow." She said the city's energy and sound feel very different to her, and admitted she doesn't have answers yet: "We'll just have to wait and see, I don't know the answer yet, but the process of figuring it out has been really fun."

Scoring isn't a one-off gig for Este either: she teamed up with Christopher Stracey on "One Night Only," starring Callum Turner, in which she also plays the role of Aura; she has also previously scored Netflix's "Maid" and the Sydney Sweeney vehicle "Anyone But You." Around the same time, Alana Haim has been busy appearing in three films back to back: "The Mastermind," "The Drama," and "One Battle After Another."

"I Quit" made NME's list of the 50 best albums of last year, with the single "Relationships" also landing on the year's best songs list. A deluxe edition of the album dropped last October, featuring the Bon Iver collaboration "Tie You Down." NME gave it four stars at the time, describing it as an album "standing at the crossroads of a grieving process, where the lessons have been learned but the ache of memory hasn't quite faded," noting that even so, the songs never wallow in despair—the warmth of sisterhood is always present.

No release date or details on the sound of the fifth album have been confirmed yet—everything's still at the "figuring it out" stage, as Este put it.