Hana Stretton is an Australian-British singer-songwriter and producer who grew up on a farm in New South Wales. Ten years in the past, she recorded her first single that may make the rounds on the web, ‘The Thrill of Loneliness’, which was rapidly adopted by the Wail EP. Stretton self-produced her debut album, 2023’s hazy, impressionistic Quickly, alone on her grandmother’s farm after she handed away, tending to the land and its animals throughout the Australian wildfires of 2019. Its mushy, ghostly meditations reached Phil Elverum, who reissued the album by way of his P.W. Elverum & Solar label in 2024, and is now releasing Stretton’s second full-length, tiarn. This time, the composer’s solitary instincts led her to Lake Tabourie, a seaside city south of Ulladulla, suffusing the album with the ephemeral magnificence and wealthy textures of the blue hour, her voice a delicate presence cautious of intrusion. It looks like waking as much as the unsurety of nightfall and treating its porous boundaries like a contemporary begin, not a pure conclusion: bountiful in its subtlety, ambient folks with an emphasis on folks, open to reinterpreation. Weaving in subject recordings alongside contributions from an opera singer, a string quartet, and Forest Creek Folks, an area 60-person choir Stretton has since joined, it threads the needle between Stretton’s nature-bound lonerism and a extra community-oriented existence. Or perhaps it merely blurs the road between the human and the non-human, cautious with all of it.
We caught up with Hana Stretton for this version of our Artist Highlight interview sequence to speak about her earliest musical reminiscences, discovering group, the method behind tiarn, and extra.
I used to be listening to the file alone at night time, out on a stroll, with noise-cancelling headphones. The second they muffled the world round me, it felt like I used to be doing a disservice to the file. There have been these pure sounds buzzing round me, and tuning them out felt in some way incorrect. I don’t know in the event you really feel strongly about this a method or one other.
I do, completely. I like that you just felt that method, as a result of you’ve got described precisely form of how I made the album – strolling alone in nature at night time. If the world round you exists in that very same mild, then it’s a part of it, so that you gotta put it on the half-cancelling setting. [laughs] Let the world in. However a few of my favourite music, if I’m having a very stressed-out day and I’m making an attempt to get from one place to a different in London, that’s after I can bleed the world out and simply be soothed by one other place, musically. It’s contextual.
If you happen to’re on the underground, you need to decrease the noise as a lot as doable. But when there are cicadas singing, and those self same sounds are on the file…
Carry it in! That’s so stunning. If you happen to’re by the seaside, let the ocean in, you already know? If you happen to’re by a tree, let the wind in. That makes me actually comfortable.
Are you able to inform me extra about your personal listening habits? How have they advanced over time? Are there some issues which have stayed the identical because you have been a toddler?
That’s a very good query. I’d say my world has shrunk in the case of the music I take heed to. It’s very particular, and really tied to emotion and place. After I was a child, I used to be residing on a farm in Australia, and I’d go off alone. I used to be a little bit of a mud child. I’d take my canine, and we’d go off, and I’d take my Walkman and form of enact what I used to be listening to. It was very very like the music was a part of my environment, and the environment have been a part of the music I used to be listening to, so I don’t suppose that’s actually modified. After which after I began making music in my teenagers, I’d take cassette machines to the river and file there. Nature has form of all the time discovered its method into the way in which I make music, so it’s intertwined. I wouldn’t even know methods to separate them, which is why studios are – I really feel like a fish out of water.
Do you thoughts sharing a reminiscence of enacting music in that method?
There was a very large rock, similar to The Lion King – the large rock the place they stroll out. We had a type of on the farm that appeared precisely like that. I’d take my canine, Bonnie, and I’d fake and sing all The Lion King songs. Issues like that. Day by day it was an obsession to change into – it’s so foolish. [laughs] That’s extra musical theater-y kind stuff, but it surely did occur with dancing alongside to Britney Spears as properly. However yeah, music was all the time being taken off by me as a child, I wouldn’t take heed to it in the home. I’d go, “Bye, everybody,” as slightly five-year-old, and go and stroll far off into the paddocks to pay attention. It was form of my factor.
And that’s form of stayed with you, I presume?
Yeah, it’s my little world. I’m very protecting of it.
How do you are feeling, then, if you’re at a live performance, or when dwell music began turning into a part of your world?
I believe I’ve by no means been an enormous gig particular person, and even taking part in them is tough. I wouldn’t contemplate myself a performer in any respect. I actually wrestle with this subsequent section of my music life. I actually don’t imagine that it fits me in any respect, however I’m making an attempt it out. I’m simply gonna try to see whether or not I can maneuver the uncomfortability of it by doing it. By the top of the 12 months, I’m doing so many reveals that I’m hoping I’ll have a greater sense of whether or not that is one thing I do all through my life or not. That’s an enormous query I’m asking myself. If individuals need to come to a present, they need to in all probability do it quickly, as a result of I don’t know if I’ll proceed. I don’t know if I’ll be capable to. It’s not good for me at this cut-off date, however I’m hoping that may shift.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUDwN714T-U
Does the concept of touring really feel completely different to you in comparison with touring in a method that feels vital to you? Or is touring a part of what makes touring an thrilling prospect?
That was the dream. I believe when touring began turning into extra of a actuality as one thing I may do, I assumed, “How unimaginable,” as a result of I’m an enormous traveler. I’ve all the time traveled, and I actually beloved to journey on my own, so I wasn’t scared and I used to be actually thrilled to have the ability to do it. However then it simply bought onerous in a short time. I actually wrestle with being perceived, being in entrance of individuals. To be trustworthy, I’m nonetheless making an attempt to determine why all of that’s so tough. However I don’t suppose that I’m alone. I believe lots of people who make bizarre music of their bed room and discover creativity that method, and thrive in aloneness – after all it wouldn’t match up that they’d be essentially incredible performers and adore it. I’d actually love to have the ability to journey, carry out, and be ok with it, however I’m not there but.
Speaking about it isn’t going to copy that have, however have you ever had conversations with individuals who have, if not shifted your understanding, inspired to consider performing in another way?
I believe the way in which that I’ve discovered methods to carry out in a very wholesome and great way is to take group with me, whether or not it’s WOOM as a bunch of mates [with whom Stretton is touring in September] or performing with a choir in Australia. The shift between solo efficiency, which feels self-aggrandizing and unusual, to a group challenge is so soothing to me. It fully recontextualizes it so I really feel fully okay with doing reveals. One concept that I’d do sooner or later is to go to cities, discover small choirs, and keep for every week at a time with a choir to the purpose the place we will do a small present, after which transfer round that method. As a result of then you possibly can actually get right into a group, meet numerous individuals, have a beautiful time swimming within the rivers, and get to know an space tremendous properly. So that you’re getting all of that journey and group in there. That is perhaps on the playing cards for my future. Typically we simply should recontextualize issues for ourselves, to swimsuit our personalities.
Does that have of singing in choirs recontextualize tiarn as a file as properly, listening again? Do you see the file in a distinct mild, having had these experiences post-recording? Do the harmonies really feel completely different or lonelier in some methods?
There’s rather a lot that occurred inside this album to assist me get into group, and I can see that now two years on. I made most of it within the winter of 2023, so it’s been three years. However I used to be so comfortable in my aloneness. And I may see that sooner or later, my unconscious, with out me realizing, was saying, “Look, it’s time, Hana. It’s important to get out and converse to individuals, and be a part of one thing.” That wasn’t actually one thing I may entry as a result of I used to be so comfortable alone, however I’m nonetheless human on the finish of the day. I can say to you now that I’ve discovered how a lot I want group by the music needing me to get out. I used to be stomping round in 5 completely different pairs of footwear on a plank of wooden, pretending I used to be a bunch of individuals dancing. Being one particular person on the left-hand facet of the room and one other particular person on the right-hand facet of the room, 100 occasions over, to fake I used to be an enormous choir – sooner or later, you simply should go, “That is ridiculous.” The music desires what it desires, and you need to go and discover it. So, I’m glad I did.
I learn an interview you probably did with Catrin Vincent three years in the past, and quite a lot of issues have been aligning for you on the time, from touring to Tokyo to being requested to help Mount Eerie. Did the next months, the beginnings of the file, change the way in which you considered music or the music business? Did isolating your self put you at a distance from the way it is perhaps perceived?
I wasn’t eager about it in any respect. I don’t take into consideration releasing the music or the way it’s gonna be taken by different individuals. I even have this very cussed concept that no person is listening or cares, which may be very releasing, however so cussed that the whole lot surprises me frequently. However I form of want that. I have to be left alone in each regard, and that features the concept of notion itself by different individuals, with the intention to be as bizarre as I have to be to make what I make. I believe now that I’m finished, all that I’ve finished is kind of formulaic, really, this time. However it does hit a impolite shock that every one this exists on the opposite facet of creating it.
Round that point, you discovered some footage of your loved ones residing in Japan within the ’90s, which served as a guiding mild throughout the recording. Did you discover that the road bought blurry between your setting and the place you have been residing in your day-to-day life, after which this reminiscence of time and place that you just by no means bought to expertise? Was that one thing that felt palpable to you at any level throughout that course of?
That’s an unimaginable notion, as a result of, yeah, completely. My creativity got here up principally round that blue hour time, which is when the video is ready, and I used to be additionally residing on a lake, the place the video can be set there in Japan. I don’t actually know why that movie was so sustaining, however I believe it’s all the time unusual to see your loved ones – how they work together with one another, how they transfer – to be so completely different to how you already know them. I used to be fascinated by all of the interplay between my relations feeling fairly completely different to after I used to be born. I simply stored making to that movie. I used to be so glad that I had such a draw to it. After which I took it to my dad, and I stated, “I hope that is okay. I simply need your permission, as a result of I’ve made this music—” half an album at that time —”to this footage of you guys.” They usually stated, “Nicely, that’s fairly bizarre, as a result of that was, if not the day, then the week of your conception.” [laughs] So, I’d made an album to my very own conception, which I don’t suppose there’s any significance in that in any respect, but it surely’s nonetheless fairly unusual.
I used to be curious if that was the one video and that’s why you clung to it, or whether or not there was quite a lot of materials and also you simply gravitated to that one.
I gravitated to that one as a result of it was already the visible that I had in my head for the place I needed the music to be set. I discovered it fairly unusual that this excellent encapsulation of what I used to be imagining existed on this video. Additionally, they’re being very nonetheless, listening to music down within the valley. I had already determined, previous to seeing this footage in any respect, that I’d have it set in a valley overlooking water, with music and opera arising delicately from distant. Rather a lot aligned for that to be very proper for this challenge.
You talked about feeling like a fish out of water in skilled studios, which made me need to ask about making your personal house. Aside from the aloneness and the liberty to be bizarre in your personal house, what’s necessary for you in making your private home studio comfy?
I believe I hold the whole lot that I exploit tremendous shitty and minimal as a result of I’m fairly technologically challenged. I don’t get pleasure from studying techy issues, and actually stubbornly so. I don’t desire a synth with numerous buttons or a DAW that asks an excessive amount of of me. I just about simply use one EQ, and that’s it, on the whole lot. My Ableton use is fairly rudimentary. So I prefer to hold my studio fairly actual, simply lined in crappy devices I’ve picked up for $10 someplace and tried to play. I imagine in accessibility, particularly for ladies, and making an attempt to point out to myself and perhaps others that you just actually don’t want a lot in any respect to make issues.
Listening to your music, too, it looks like the larger challenge is to not keep inside, however to combine issues from the surface world. Your day-to-day life on the time is basically heard on this album, and I’m curious how a lot of it you felt such as you have been consciously translating and capturing it, or if it was extra so glimpses of it that seeped by.
I believe probably the most aware a part of my life after I’m making and residing alone in this type of method is how I’m interacting with nature day-after-day. The music comes secondary to that. Naturally, I’m simply spending a lot of my time outdoors, and a lot of my productiveness is outdoors, so it’s bought to return indoors that method. However I’m very captivated with – not only for myself – coming again to nature a bit extra, getting off our gadgets, getting off telephones, and simply being a part of it a bit extra.
I learn that you just’re a dumb cellphone person, which I’m interested in.
Yeah. I used to be attending to the purpose with my despair in regards to the world the place it was actually damaging my life and making me fairly offended at individuals, and I couldn’t be a part of the dots and be okay with all of it. However getting off my gadgets and getting out into nature far more actually softened my life a lot. I imagine in softness, particularly on this world that may be very sharp and demanding our consideration always. My nervous system has calmed down, and I’m typically rather a lot happier. I can let you know that my cellphone is an AGM M7, and it has probably the most hilarious model of Maps and WhatsApp.
These are the 2 additional stuff you want.
For thus lengthy I stated, “Oh, I can’t change as a result of I want Maps and WhatsApp,” however I bloody discovered it, and it’s actually good. [laughs] It’s known as “the rugged man’s tenting cellphone,” so I assume I’m a rugged man.
One factor that drew me to the album is that I really feel like there’s quite a lot of manufacturing or experimentation that defines the construction of a composition, however there are some tracks, like ‘As If Was Earlier than This’, that appear to naturally cling to a track type. Do you are feeling like there’s an intuition that you’ve got for when a track must retain that type, or when it’s extra improvisational? Do you even draw a line between these two?
Each track got here to me fully in another way. ‘Proper Whale’ is a chopped-up improvisation on piano. It appears like a correct track that I wrote on a piano, however I’ve really by no means performed it, I don’t even know methods to play it. In order that’s, I assume, “extremely produced,” as a result of it’s probably not produced in any respect, however yeah. However songs like ‘As It Was Earlier than This’ and ‘Salt’, these community-type of songs, they’re what they’re. They arrive in a short time, extra like youngsters’s songs or one thing that you’d make up as you’re strolling alongside. Which is precisely how I make them anyway – I make them up as I’m strolling alongside.
Is it perhaps as a result of they’re extra like youngsters’s songs that they really feel treasured in a method that you just don’t need to mess with them?
Yeah, however I did. I completely messed with them. A lot of that’s that I don’t actually really feel like a producer; I really feel like I’m very a lot nonetheless studying and having fights inside my very own manufacturing. ‘As It Was Earlier than This’ is form of like a brawl between numerous completely different voices that need numerous various things. Typically that’s the case, the place my manufacturing and I are combating: I need it to be a method, and it desires to be one thing else. Typically we’re in full alignment, and I can really feel that. I don’t know whether or not the listener can really feel that. However I additionally imagine that songs don’t have a method of being. I can play ‘As It Was Earlier than This’ in so many alternative methods. I additionally carry out it as a spherical, and I imagine there might be extra recordings in several methods. I’m positive a softer, childlike model will come out sooner or later, and I hope it is going to. However for now, it’s what occurred. [laughs] That’s what I’ve needed to say to myself rather a lot. You’ve bought to provide your self a little bit of grace and say, “Yep, that’s simply what occurred.”
Going again to what we began speaking about, you possibly can’t management even how somebody listens to it, and that’s a distinct model of a track. If somebody listens to it on the road versus by the seaside, that’s a distinct model of the track indirectly, like a subject recording that wasn’t there earlier than.
Completely, and I’m struggling fairly a bit now with listening to the way it sounds by Spotify, as a result of that squishes it a lot. I work actually onerous on a mushy combine, and now the cicadas that I had positioned on a far mountain within the again are flying straight at your face. I didn’t imply for that to occur. However some music is basically affected by that Spotify squish, and others not a lot, so I’m only a bit unfortunate.
There’s typically quite a lot of combating over when the track is completed. However one thing that I’m eager about in relation to your music isn’t a lot how you establish that, however the way you carve out the beginnings and the endings of songs. Loads of the time, you allow quite a lot of respiration room on the finish of songs, particularly on ‘Off Stokes’, however there are songs the place you additionally go away that house to start with. I’m wondering the way you navigate that a part of crafting a track.
I’m gonna have to provide you a really boring reply, and say no matter it’s that you just’re making dictates all of that. I’ve no consciousness, actually, of “I need to do that,” or “I would love it to be a sure method.” If I’ve that form of notion earlier than I begin something, I received’t do something. I received’t be capable to make something in any respect. The one factor is that if I’ve visible stimuli, and I typically did for this album, I’d have a really particular visible in my head. Typically I’d discover that visible in actuality, pop it into my Ableton in order that it was all the time there after I introduced it up, and that may assist to dictate, as a result of there’s a pure arc within the video that you just’ve put in. However aside from that, I’ve no method in any respect earlier than I begin doing something.
That’s an attention-grabbing technique to visualize music.
Yeah, visuals are form of the whole lot. If I’ve any method in any respect, it’s that. I’ve a really clear thought of the place I’m earlier than I begin; not bodily the place I’m, however in my creativeness. The place I need the track to dwell: Is it close to water? What sort of animals dwell there? Is it scorching? Is it chilly? And that dictates the notes that come up, and the colour that I’m making, and the time of day that it looks like, and it offers context to the whole lot. It makes making itself a lot extra pure and simple. And I’m very grateful for that. I believe making with out that may be very onerous for me. However then the songs, as soon as they begin to take type, sooner or later, the roles will reverse, and the track will both go, “Okay, I don’t thoughts being the place you’ve positioned me,” or it is going to go, “Completely not.” [laughs] And we are going to combat. There’s fairly a little bit of combating on this album, and that’s been enjoyable. However I’m hoping that I’ll perceive the method slightly bit extra as I make extra albums into the longer term, and there’ll be much less rigidity.
What’s attention-grabbing is that then there comes some extent the place the visible world of the file builds again up otherwise, with its personal paintings and movies aren’t essentially related to those that originally impressed you. That’s a part of the cycle of the music taking a lifetime of its personal.
Completely. I humbly perceive that I’m not doing this fully alone. I’m in a dance with no matter this track I’m making is wanting. I can’t power it on a regular basis to be what I need it to be. It has its personal will. I’m positive that quite a lot of different individuals in manufacturing really feel the identical method.
Did you are feeling the identical method in regards to the file as a complete, or was it principally particular person songs that had a will of their very own?
Yeah, very cussed – didn’t actually need to be on the market and seen or heard very a lot, didn’t need to be completed. Whereas Quickly was prepared earlier than I even knew it was an album, as a result of I made it as demos after which form of simply launched it because it was. There’s one thing about this album that was form of feisty and like a petulant baby, so I can’t clarify that. However I’m comfortable I made it, I prefer it. It simply is what it’s – the second child. It’s fairly bizarre generally.
You talked about in that older interview that’s “it’s good to have a north star.” Do you are feeling like you’ve got one that you just’re wanting in direction of proper now?
I believe 12 months after 12 months – and music has helped me by this as properly – I’ve come nearer and nearer in asking all these questions of methods to dwell a superb life. I’ve a lot extra understanding as to what I want and the way to try this, and that’s my north star. I’m simply making an attempt to get nearer to that. Loads of nature, quite a lot of animals concerned in my future, for positive. And group.
This interview has been edited and condensed for readability and size.
Hana Stretton’s tiarn is out now.
