Sinead Harnett

Pretend · July 14, 2015

There aren’t many new artists who’ve featured on two multi-platinum UK number 1 albums (Rudimental’s Home and Disclosures’s Settle), collaborated with everyone from Ryan Hemsworth to Goldlink, and who’ve been tapped up by the actual Janet Jackson to work on her new album. Actually there’s only one artist to fit that bill and that’s your new favourite singer, Sinead Harnett. Born in north London to a Thai mother and an Irish father, 25-year-old Sinead’s music is an intoxicating blend of laid-back featherlight soul, 90s-referencing R&B bangers (think Timbaland-produced Aaliyah tinged with UK garage) and delicately swooning slow jams all tied together by a versatile voice that coaxes and teases one minute, and delivers a withering put down the next. The latter can be found in abundance on the percussive stomp of the excellent new single She Ain’t Me, an attitude-heavy change of pace from the cooing collaborations she’s done so far. A sign of what’s to come on her forthcoming debut album I’ll Remain, She Ain’t Me captures an artist stepping up to the next level. “That was one of the earlier tunes I did for the album that featured this new, more feisty side to me,” she explains. “I knew it needed to be on the album and I actually fought for it to be a single. It’s still quite restrained, but there’s attitude in there too. It’s still me but a step up.”

Peppered with low slung grooves, subtly entrancing vocal melodies and lashings of smoky soul, 2014’s N.O.W EP was an introduction to what Harnett could do outside of the features. “The EP was very much me at that time,” she says. “That was where I was at, I was writing my album but I wanted to give people a hint of what was to come. I wanted to share where I was at that time.” It’s a sign of how confident she is in the new material that none of the songs from the EP made the final album tracklisting, especially when you consider that one of the songs, No Other Way, was picked out as a favourite by childhood hero Janet Jackson, whose management, and then later super producer Rodney Jerkins, had been in touch to see if Sinead might like to write for Jackson’s forthcoming new album (talks are ongoing).

Thankfully the subtler side of her musical personality is catered for on the album by the silky soft Enough, the softly devastating title track and the gorgeous swoon of Let You Win, a song recorded in LA after a three day writing session with Beyoncé and Rihanna collaborator, James Fauntleroy. “His way of working is so relaxed and it was such a pleasure to work with him,” she says of the sessions in his studio in Inglewood. “We had three days together, which I still can’t believe. I remember him asking me what I was feeling from the instrumental and to me, instinctively, it was just a sexy song.” Other collaborators on the album include the likes of MOJAM, Two Inch Punch, TMS, Chris Loco and Kendrick Lamar collaborator Koz, each helping channel Harnett’s ideas and songwriting into an eclectic, multi-layered album that showcases more than one flavour. “There are lots of layers on the album and I’ll Remain, the song, is the heart of it. That was the song I’ve put under the carpet for years. I wanted to find peace with the situation it touches on,” she says. “The top layer is the more fun songs and there are also the sexier moments too.” Then there’s the drum clap heavy minimalism of the amazing future single Do It Anyway, a song “about me getting a high out of doing things the way I want to do them and not being influenced by people who maybe don’t have my best intentions at heart.”

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