Off The Bench: Hannah Stow Scores With Debut EP ‘Sidelined’

Described as ‘hazy, dazy, indie-pop’ Western Australian artist Hannah Stow’s debut EP sidelined, is a collection of singles her old label turned down, or ‘sidelined’.

“I feel it simulates a team sport where the coach thinks you're not good enough, so you get benched the whole season until one day someone lets you play and you shock the whole team,” says Stow on the EP’s title.

Stow’s EP does not come as a shock to her loyal fanbase however, named “Aunty Hanny’s Cherubs”, who are often treated to intimate snippets of her songs via social media platforms such as TikTok and Instagram. Stow is active on both these sites, with many of the singles featured on this EP already fan favourites.

We have Stow’s Instagram fans to thank for the EP’s final track Shade On Your Name, which Stow says “is purely there because my Instagram went nuts for it”.

Coming in at six tracks total, sidelined is an emotive reflection on her life and career so far, traversing universal themes such as love, loss, family, and leaving your hometown. Opener Leave Perth is exactly what it says on the tin, exploring Stow’s complex relationship with the place she grew up.

“I felt I needed to leave Perth to pursue my music career. I felt like I was running out of time and had too many things to achieve and perhaps Perth wasn’t the place to be if I wanted to reach my goals.”

Leave Perth was also a late addition to the EP, Stow’s ‘youngest child’.

“Hard Facts is my middle child, a difficult and troubled track that had the beat remade four times before I settled on the final production,” Stow explains. “I love each track for different reasons.”

One of her eldest, But I Lie, has stood the test of time in Stow’s eyes. “Often years pass, and you start to hate the work you did, but I always loved But I Lie.”

“A lot of my older stuff was leaning more towards the electronic side. A lot of synths and heavy drops which is probably why in an EP where I wanted to showcase older parked projects, this electronic feel comes out.”

Stow is quite the genre chameleon, and while she describes her newer projects as “more accurate representations” of the music she is leaning into currently, she says of her sound, “you never know what you’ll get.”

“Music is creative expression, so I think I’d be doing myself a disservice if I didn’t dip into different genres if I felt they represented the song better.”

The combination of old and new tracks on sidelined is an indication of the push-back Stow worked through to release this EP.

“I found that as a smaller artist, your projects got parked a lot,” Stow reflects. “They get critiqued so heavily that by the end of it, the song doesn't have the same feeling and isn’t authentic because it's now someone else's version.

“I got told to ‘focus more on making a viral hit’ or ‘let's send this acoustic track to a house producer and make it a house track’. I feel the more you push for something the more it repels. The more I felt uneasy about my music or like I needed to fit the mould, the more I felt it wasn't going to go well for me.”

Throughout this, Stow stayed steadfast in her own creative vision, focussing on continuing to provide new music content for her fans online.

“That is always the goal, to create music that people can relate to. I always wanted my music to create an avenue for people to express a situation if they lack the words to explain it. I want them to be able to piggyback off my words.”

The supportive relationship between Stow and her fans is notably reciprocal, with fans coming out in passionate support of Stow during her audition for reality show The Voice Australia earlier this year.

“You went on that stage with such integrity, absolutely love your voice,” was just one of the slew of fan responses on Stow’s Instagram.

Of the audition process, Stow says it was “a crazy experience”.

“It's a shame my nerves got the better of me on the day but I'm a big believer in that what's meant for you will stay and what's not - won't work out.”

And that belief has paid off. With her EP out, and off the back of a sold-out hometown show in August, Stow is setting her sights on making her way over east to tour. Other than that, she is continuing to “always write, and always work – the grind don’t stop baby!”