alayna

Throughout her career so far, alayna has earned over 85 million streams across her work, placing her in the top 3% of artists worldwide in streaming volume. It’s a staggering number, almost overwhelming, but one thing is undeniable: alayna’s lush, dreamy, seraphic music resonates somewhere deep and profound within her listeners.

Over the course of a year and a half, alayna’s new album, Set Her Free (via Nettwerk), tumbled out in waves. Numerous and valuable writing sessions alongside celebrated producers helped alayna sculpt the project, time well spent in quiet, intensive creation. It was alongside producer Ben Malone, however, that alayna shaped the majority of the record.

Lead single, Mother’s Mother, floats above the universe as alayna pays her respect to the matriarchy. “Thanks to your mother’s mother’s mother’s mother’s mother/all of them had a hand in growing this beautiful garden.” It’s remarkable how alayna is somehow able to distil a multiple generations’ worth of respect and gratitude into one beautiful song.

Animal, another single, is “all body,” alayna says. She’s right – listening to this song is a completely physical experience. There’s elements of Sade here – a hero of alayna’s – and yet it feels so fresh, so visceral, so warm. A testament to her commitment to the craft, alayna took a dance class before recording the final vocals for this song, drawing that through line from body to voice to track. Tiny Spaces holds a mirror to romantic love at its finest —a love that can encompass the whole universe and yet still fit in the smallest, most mundane corners of life. alayna knows the best kind of love can do both, as her exquisite voice is both soft and strong all at once.

The final two tracks on this record are, largely, broad, beautiful instrumentals. In the final track, alayna simply repeats: “What of I, if I set her free?” The words came to alayna as though she were a vessel for something much bigger than any of us could comprehend.

“I didn’t know what it was, but there was something in that phrase,” she says thoughtfully. “In a way it felt like the answer to all the questions I was asking in each song. Maybe in ten years I’ll start to understand it.”