Airling Returns After Eight Years, Announces 'Retrieve' EP

After eight years away from the spotlight, Brisbane’s Airling has returned with brand-new music. Today, she’s announced her new EP, Retrieve, and unveiled the first single, Mona Lisa.

Set for release on Friday, 6 March, Retrieve will be released via Pieater (Big Scary, Maple Glider). Airling, the project of Hannah Shepherd, has always been a captivating journey.

However, following the release of her debut album, Hard To Sleep, Easy To Dream, she needed a change and pivoted to nursing, with the time away giving her the space to rediscover the joy of making music. Without external pressures, songs arrived without expectations or judgments.

Retrieve is a six-track EP packed with stories of loss, recovery, infatuation and power. Written and recorded alongside longtime collaborators Tom Iansek (#1 Dads, Big Scary) and Graham Ritchie (Holy Holy, Scenes) – with whom she recorded her debut EP Love Gracefully, and album Hard To Sleep, Easy To Dream – at her home in Brisbane, 4000 Studios and BellBird Studio in Melbourne, the EP came together as a collaborative effort.

Discussing her break from music, Airling said, “I’ve always had a fascination with the human body and the human condition… our fragility and astounding depth of resilience. My voice has evolved with me and my life.

“Connecting with people through music isn’t the same as helping the most vulnerable, but I find it weirdly similar. It’s a different energy, but there’s this familiar warmth. And when writing the songs on Retrieve, I found myself in my favourite state... a song comes to me, and I just play.”

Opening up about the vibrant lead single Mona Lisa, she continued, “When you see the Mona Lisa, you get the feeling that she is looking at you no matter where you stand in the room. There’s always a huge crowd around her.

“This song is about how blurred our boundaries can get and how confusing power dynamics are. It’s about falling for love and falling for the glitter and glamour of someone. In our world that is overloaded with distractions, it’s so precious to have someone’s unconditional attention and to be present for them in return.”

You can check out Mona Lisa below and pre-save the Retrieve EP here.

Following the release of Hard To Sleep, Easy To Dream, in 2017, Airling found an audience with her personal lyricism and soaring vocals, earning Feature Album on triple j.

She’s collaborated with the likes of Emma Louise, Japanese Wallpaper, Xavier Dunn, LANKS, and Christopher Port, as well as her longtime collaborator Tom Iansek across his solo work and #1 Dads. Airling also won the triple j Unearthed competition for Splendour In The Grass, performed alongside Vance Joy, AURORA, and M83, played at Laneway Festival, and took on Like A Version, among other career highlights. It’s good to have her back.