Altai gives ‘Tell Me When’, a prologue track that reads like a love letter scrawled between farm chores on ancestral aboriginal land. The song opens so gently, it features Collins’ whispered vocals over fragile guitar lines, posing that age-old questioning of wavering relationships: “If you touch my arm ‘my friend’ – ‘my friend’ / Then you’re obliged to say when, I can.” Hers are words that explore the complex spectrum between friendship and something more, wherein each action bears that thirteenth’s weight and every silence is shouting.

Producer Lachlan Mitchell has captured that rural intimacy, leaving enough room for Collins’s multi-instrumental approach to the record – she handles vocals, guitar, synth, and drums. At the same time, Kat Harley adds bass and other synth textures. The overall production does not seem rushed, but rather more like an afternoon conversation that carries on into the evening without anyone checking the time.

Chorus reveals the song’s emotional core: “You are the only light I see/ I tried to block the shine you beam.” Collins admits to attraction and resistance, painting a picture of someone wrestling with their feelings while wishing the other might move first. Mixed and mastered by William Evans, the track boasts the organic warmth that belies its rural origins.

“Tell Me When” provides an engaging teaser of Collins’ debut EP.