INTERVIEW: Hanni on her debut EP 'Sentimental Me': "It's very honest and I'm not trying to hide from the deep, dark thoughts that no one talks about."

Interview: Jett Tattersall
Image: Aidan Rice
Published: 2 December 2024

Australian singer-songwriter Hanni (full name Hannah Schloman) has been releasing music since 2019 and in the intervening years has received recognition from the BBC, Triple J and won an award at the Queensland Music Awards. Her gorgeous music combines electronic pop with indie along with hints of R&B.

She has just released her debut EP Sentimental Me, with the five tracks inspired by her life experiences over her five years as a recording artist, covering relationships, love, heartbreak, loss and everything in between. Ranging from dreamy and ethereal, to melancholic and moody electronica, the songs are a look into Hanni’s world almost like reading pages from her diary.

“Each song feels like a confession to myself, a way to process and do therapy without seeing a therapist,” Hanni says. “These songs feel as though I’ve quite literally opened up my diary and spilled my deepest darkest secrets into each lyric. The making of each song on Sentimental Me has been a band aid in helping me heal wounds that were so deep I didn’t think they ever would heal.”

The EP opens with ‘Fix Myself’ and a haunting string section. A heartfelt ballad, Hanni clearly lays out the theme of the EP as she openly sings about being in a relationship where both sides are falling apart and the realisation that she needs to focus on repairing herself before she can move forward with anyone else: “I can’t seem to carry us both / While I fix myself”.

‘Sad Girl Hours’ is another gentle ballad that speaks of those moments when memories and emotions overwhelm you and the only thing you can do is dwell on them. ‘I know we haven’t talked but I need you to know / That I still about you in the sad girl hours’.

‘Care Too Much’ introduces a more electronica sound, with a beat that builds through the verse before the chorus hits with Hanni singing of a one-sided relationship. ‘The Border’, co-written and produced with Hauskey, is an indiepop track that tells of being in a toxic relationship and the mental trauma of finding the courage to leave, and beating yourself up after leaving for staying too long.

The EP ends with ‘I Would’, a stripped back, emotional dedication to Hanni’s grandmother who died of cancer. ‘If I could I would choose for you to stay’. It is a beautiful way to end an EP that wraps itself around you and lets you feel every bit of your feelings.

Sentimental Me showcases every single bit of Hanni’s prodigious talent and potential and marks her out as clearly one of Australia’s greatest young talents. Her songs are infused with feeling, emotions and depth while still maintaining that pop music spark. We recently sat down with Hanni to chat more about the creation of this incredible debut.

Hi Hanni, it’s so lovely to meet you. You have glorious things going on with your beautiful debut EP Sentimental Me. Congratulations, how are you feeling to have it out and in the ears of everyone?
It feels crazy, to be fair. It feels like it's been the longest, most drawn out process of my life. But I'm so glad in a way that it took so long because I made it the way that I wanted to, and I didn't rush it. It feels really good that this is finally the day.

Sentimental Me is an EP, but it's so full. You love music, and all kinds of music and it’s almost like you want to experiment with every sound you can in each song, which is beautiful. I think you have just allowed yourself to create your version of what a song is.
I feel like as I get older, it changes, but the things that I do to make the songs is still the same. You grow as a songwriter and I've just literally finished writing for the last week or so in Sydney, and that stuff feels like such a growth from this EP. In a weird way, but in a nice way as well.

I feel like there's no limits, it's just whatever the song will be. I don’t ever want to put a boundary on what something has to be. Even for the EP, ‘Fix Myself’ was more produced at the start of the song, and then I just ripped out everything and grabbed strings from the end of the song and was like, ‘I want this at the start’. The producer actually had no idea, he only found out a couple of days ago that I did that! I just knew it didn't feel right. Even though it didn't really make sense in the context of the song, that's what I thought was right. I just feel like music is a thing you can be so creative with, why wouldn't you just do whatever you want, rather than ‘the song has to be this way, because that's what someone's telling me it has to be.’

I’m glad you said that, because ‘Fix Myself’ is my favourite track on the EP. It's the fact that you get this lightness and hope in that little mini chorus, but first you have to pass through the gauntlet of this kind of drunken tragedy at the beginning. It's brutal.
Yes, very brutal. Showing that to my partner at the time was wild, because it was pretty much saying, ‘I don't really want to be in this because I can't fix myself, because I'm broken too’. Writing your thoughts and then showing the person that you wrote them about is wild.

Tell me a little bit about title of the EP and how it encapsulated the EP for you. Sentimental Me is just so lovely and forgiving in a reflective way of self. It comes with such warm and growth. It is very tender and I really like it.
It stems from me being a very sentimental person. I'm very emotional, and I feel that is portrayed in the music that I make. It's very honest and I'm not trying to hide from the deep, dark thoughts that no one talks about. The title wasn't something that came easily, over many years that I had this little note in my phone that had multiple different names of songs and specific lyrics, a nd I was like, ‘maybe that works’. But I kept coming back to sentimental, and I was in the car with my mum and we were talking about what it should be called, and she said ‘why not just ‘Sentimental Me’? It's feels nice and this thing to yourself that it's okay that you are this way’. I feel like that's kind of what the EP’s about. It's all my emotions in one little space, anything from ‘fuck you’ to ‘I'm really broken and maybe I need some help’. It just felt right once it found its way to me.

On that because your songs are very exposed, there are no punches held, even though they are delivered very tenderly. Is there one song that really catches in your throat with the memory of its creation?
It would probably be ‘Fix Myself’, and that's probably why it is the opening track. It just feels so honest, maybe a bit too far. I like to not listen to any of my music for a couple months, and then come back to it with fresh ears, because otherwise you can get bogged down, listening to the same stuff gets a bit boring. I hadn't listened to ‘Fix Myself’ for ages and then put it on maybe a month or two ago, and I was just like, ‘What the hell did I write?’ It still feels emotional. I'm not hurt by the situation anymore, but it still feels very tender when I listen to it.

With regards to your journey into this industry as a young woman in a landscape and country that's that's not always known for its celebration of young women, how have you found navigating that?
I feel like the industry is trying to help and pull up female artists, and we're starting to see that a lot more even in the last year. But when I first started, there wasn’t as much backing and support. I don't think anyone was against me, but it definitely feels like now, there's playlisting and things that pulls us women up. It feels like we're heading in a better direction. It's still not great but we’re getting there.

How have you kept pushing your music, your very feminine, very sentimental style through in, what I imagine is a environment of a lot of men going, ‘No, I'll tell you what you want to do’.
I feel like maybe my music just isn't hitting for them, it just isn't for them, but I'm not making music to please anyone. Whoever listens and whoever doesn't, doesn't faze me. Supporting other artists as well, and feeling that support back and knowing that I’m not the only one that's feeling this way. I’ve taken quite a bit of time off this year because I was just exhausted by making music and all that comes with being an artist, and I feel like coming back, it feel likes the industry hasn't changed or really grown in the time that I've had off. There's a lot more we could be doing for each other in terms of female empowerment, and just empowerment for everyone.

This is great. I've got one last question for you. If you were to give any advice or encouragement to your young self, with all the work you have now with you incredible EP, what would it be?
Don't give a fuck and do what you want to do. Do what pleases you, everyone else will please themselves at the end of the day. Feel it all as well, it's okay to feel things and as long as you're making yourself happy, it's okay.

Sentimental Me is out now via Dew Process/Universal Music. You can buy and stream here.
Follow Hanni on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok.