PREMIERE: Audrey Powne releases lush new single 'Sleep'
Image: Bianca Milani and Kayzar
Published 21 March 2024
UK based Naarm/Melbourne singer, songwriter and producer Audrey Powne is an extremely special artist who over her career has effortlessly moved between synthpop, soul and jazz.
Drawn to jazz from a very young age, she began performing on the Melbourne music scene alongside artists such as Hiatus Kaiyote, and has since created synthpop as part of the duo Au Dré, soul with Leisure Centre - in which she also played the trumpet - and in 2018 she launched her solo career with the soulful ‘Flowers’.
Receiving critical acclaim from the BBC, Powne’s solo releases are an intoxicating mix of neo-soul, R&B and jazz, while earlier this year she embraced electronic dance pop with a remix EP of her single ‘Feed The Fire’ with Atjazz and musclecars.
With a beautiful, expressive voice Powne is also an highly accomplished technical artist, a talent that is on full display on her debut album From The Fire which is due for release in April. Alongside performing the vocals, songwriting and playing trumpet and keys, Powne also composed, arranged the strings and produced the album. The album was created in the aftermath of a personally traumatic event whilst Powne was living in New York, and writing the album while suffering from PTSD was a cathartic experience for her, allowing to find peace.
This Friday, Powne releases the new single from the album, ‘Sleep’, but today you can listen to it exclusively on Women In Pop. It is a gorgeous, almost hypnotic song that has immense power in its subtleness. It includes piano and strings with a hint of musical theatre as its rhythm changes from moments of silence to Powne’s soaring vocal.
"My experience with lucid dreams throughout the period this song speaks to was so vivid and intense that it really made me wonder about the nature of reality and our individual experience of reality,” Powne says of ‘Sleep’. “At the time what I experienced whilst lucid dreaming felt as real and impactful on my day to day existence and mood as what I was experiencing while I was awake and isn't that all your own personal reality is? How you feel and how you react?"
Powne’s music almost transcends the term and is more akin to an immersive listening experience that almost takes you out of time and space. Soothing yet invigorating, you can happily lose yourself in her art and whatever mood takes you, there will be a perfect match in Powne’s portfolio. From The Fire is shaping up to be an album to cherish, but for now enjoy the beauty of ‘Sleep’ exclusively below before its general release on Friday 22 March.
