Bio

Steady in her power and fuelled by a fiercely uncommon authenticity, Melbourne’s Ayleen O’Hanlon releases bold new single, Straight. 

A fixture of the alt-country/folk scene, O’Hanlon has recorded, toured and created both locally and internationally with key appearances at Port Fairy Folk Festival, Queenscliff Music Festival, Folk Alliance International, and Darebin and Brunswick Music Festivals as both artist and producer. 

Her dynamic output has faced one hell-of-a journey. Between debut album, Blend and Spill (2015) and follow-up single, Good as Gold (2018), a double-dose of heartbreak, burnout and a pandemic forced an otherwise tenacious O’Hanlon to stop, about-face and re-evaluate the meaning of pushing a vision to its limits. 

The result is Straight, the cathartic, powerful and deliciously slow-building second single from an album set to showcase a fearless, new sound from one of Australia’s most underrated artists. 

“Straight is a simple bid for honesty and clarity in the midst of heartbreak,” O’ Hanlon shares. 

“I wrote it in a vulnerable state, moving through some deep anger and frustration; wanting a simple explanation, a straight answer to a crooked problem.”

Straight sees producer, Michael Hubbard (Jen Cloher, Eagle and the Worm, The Bluebottles) facilitate a whole new sonic depth for O’Hanlon as she dives head-first into a bigger, bolder sound settling in the dusk of past loves, trials and tribulations. Rather than romanticising the past or painting pictures of realities other than her own, this new aesthetic shines in its gritty, inward-facing grandeur: an honest, bare-to-the-bone sonic account of O’Hanlon’s formative experience.

Hear that? It’s the sound of a true creative power stepping boldly into her own light.