The definition of Retrieve is to find and bring something precious back, which is fitting, since this six-track EP documents Hannah Shepherd’s return to music.
Shepherd (the pure, ethereal voice behind the Airling moniker) took time away from music to complete her nursing degree, gathering life experiences along the way to enrich her songwriting. Free from expectations and tight deadlines, Shepherd let lyrical ideas and melodies flow, unfiltered.
Stay up to date with what’s happening in and around Melbourne here.
Track one, Stars, opens with synth bursts that conjure constellations illuminating, haphazardly, at nightfall. “Maybe this is just for fun,” Shepherd sings, as if rediscovering her life’s purpose.
Many songs on this EP are unison-sung – like simultaneously narrated shared experiences (think: Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes uniting on Up Where We Belong’s choruses).
Over sparse piano plinks, Love Lessons (feat. Big Scary’s Tom Iansek) implores, “Show me how to love you”. Here, Iansek delivers some intriguing spoken-word bits (eg. “The truth is relative, not fact [pause for effect]/ Find your truth in that”).
Mona Lisa slinks in softly, measured piano chords and mounting melodies making way for intimate confessions: “I could die a million times here in your arms I’m falling for love…”
Featuring sad-robot BVs – “I’m in love with you, I could fly/ Your beauty, it burns my eyes” – Reach Out glistens with hopeful, arpeggiating keys.
A breezy, luvd-up selection, Retrieve sounds like true passion reignited. We’re so chuffed Shepherd chose to focus on the music again. And we also love that she refers to her followers as Airheads.
LABEL: PIEATER
RELEASE: OUT NOW
