Q&A: Sunny Reyne Delivers Warm Soul Music in Her Debut Album ‘I’ve Been Sleeping Too Long’
☆ BY Kristian Gonzales ☆
Photos by Kaddy Jatta
SHIMMERING WITH GRACE — Melbourne-born R&B songstress Sunny Reyne is capable of lifting even the lowest of spirits with her music. Blazing down the soulful path of foremothers such as Erykah Badu, Solange, Brittany Howard, and Lianne La Havas, Reyne is the latest in a new wave of women carrying the neo-soul sound as a musical spiritual guide. With an earthy aura fitting of the atmosphere of her native country of Australia, she exudes a silkyness that’ll clear mental cobwebs. In collaboration with her go-to producer Lewis Moody, Reyne recently released her debut album, I’ve Been Sleeping Too Long.
Building on the subdued instrumentation and vocal acrobatics of her 2022 EP, Right Now, the album serves as a love letter to the jazz, R&B, and alt-rock she grew up on.
“The album covers themes of friendships, love, death, fear, and the moments that happen in the small hours of the day, the early hours of the morning, and the late hours of the evening, when time feels sleepy and sacred but when thoughts can be at their most chaotic and heightened,” she shares about the album. “I am at my most creative generally at these times of day, and it is when I am most able to put sense to my songwriting. This album is an ode to those moments that feel precious and where time is only yours."
I’ve Been Sleeping Too Long opens with the one-two punch of the contemplative slow-burner “Safe,” followed by the glistening piano of “Cold Morning,” which dives into the warmth of waking up on a winter morning. Themes of sleep and comfort reverberate on songs such as the gospel-soaked cut “Left Alone.” Elsewhere, Reyne gains clarity through adversity on highlights such as “Burnt,” in which she processes grief upon the death of a close family member, and “Overthrown,” a sizzling commentary on the effects of patriarchy placed upon women who speak up about unacceptable treatment.
Blossoming amongst R&B and indie-soul heads, Reyne has found support through a collective of tastemakers. In addition to Australia’s community radio stations such as PBS and Triple R, Reyne is turning heads in the UK, with BBCR1’s Jamie Cullum, Jazz FM’s Tony Minvielle, and publications such Wonderland all taking notice. Following her debut as a supporting act for contemporaries MADELEINE and House of El, and on the UK festival scene at How the Light Gets In, Reyne’s growth knows no bounds.
Luna caught up with the singer-songwriter to learn more about the process behind the album’s atmosphere, her musical influences, and her perspective on representing Australia. Read the interview below.
LUNA: Hello Sunny, it’s great to connect with you! How are you feeling in regards to your debut album, I’ve Been Sleeping Too Long, after introducing yourself with your first project, Right Now?
REYNE: Hi! Thank you — it’s so nice to now be able to have it out in the world. I actually had recorded this album in the middle of 2021 … before I decided to record and put out my EP Right Now, so it feels really nice to be able to see it to its completion after having had it sitting on the sidelines for such a long time. The EP and this album I think are pretty different sonically and showcase different parts of my songwriting influences and ideas, so it’s nice to be able to have them side by side to see that contrast and growth over time.
LUNA: Have there been any experiences you had in between both projects that brought a major change to your songwriting process?
REYNE: When I first recorded I’ve Been Sleeping Too Long, I got to spend a week at Rolling Stock Recording Rooms in Melbourne with Lewis Moody, UK-based keys player and producer, who I worked on with both this album and the EP. We were able to spend a really wonderful collaborative week bringing these songs to life … [homing] into the different sounds we were trying to achieve. When I then decided to actually record and release Right Now, we spent maybe a day or two together in person in Melbourne, but then the rest of the process was done entirely remotely via Zoom, which I think definitely created a different sound. I would record a lot on my own back home, and then we would jump on a call together and we’d piece together what I’d done and work on it from there. It’s definitely a different experience not being in a studio together, but I think it brought a new and interesting sound to the songs that otherwise wouldn’t have been there.
LUNA: Turning the clock back to your beginnings, how did your upbringing in Melbourne influence your overall identity as an artist?
REYNE: Melbourne is home to such a strong arts and music scene [so] I was surrounded by a really vast array of music growing up. I began studying jazz singing in high school and then onto university, where I was really introduced to a lot of my first influences and inspirations within my own songwriting and sound. Specifically, the neo-soul and jazz scene is very strong, and the music currently coming out of that is constantly inspiring. The early harbingers of the strong Melbourne soul sound, like Hiatus Kaiyote, paved a really unique path for a lot of the current musicians making waves within that sound. There are definitely close similarities within the music scene between Melbourne and London, which is why I think a lot of the sounds crossover and connect so strongly. Now that I’m currently based in London, it’s amazing to be within this scene that is on a much more expansive scale.
LUNA: Were there any initial goals you had in mind with making music that could relate, or to put it more eloquently, be the soundtrack for people that come from the same place as you and really represent Australian music as its own style?
REYNE: I think naturally being around musicians and music that is really having its moment — at least within the Melbourne scene, even subconsciously — was a big inspiration in helping me to write the sounds that I ended up creating. The grittiness and rawness of the nu-soul sounds in Melbourne to me is quite unique, and that paved a way in my own writing for sure. I also think that because Melbourne really is such a small place, if you’re comparing it to … the vastness of London, being immersed in that scene and knowing so many creatives due to its smaller scale … the blend of sounds is almost inevitable. It definitely is inspiring to be able to be a part of that.
LUNA: As a fan of soul and jazz, did you lean towards American artists or more of the UK scene? If you love both almost equally, what were elements of each scene that really spoke to your tastes?
REYNE: My initial love of the soul and jazz scene definitely came from UK artists. Lianne La Havas’ 2012 album Is Your Love Big Enough? was one of my first introductions to the UK sound and was a major influence in my own songwriting. People like Jordan Rakei, Cleo Sol, and Yazmin Lacey are current artists who inhabit that nu-soul sound but take the simplicity of it to the next level, where there is just an emphasis on really tasteful and interesting songwriting that transcends borders. There’s definitely no denying though that American and Canadian artists are huge influences for my own writing. Where the UK sound is maybe a little more gritty and earthy, I feel like there is a refined and unmatched energy within the American soul sound that is really special. Artists like Nick Hakim, Meshell Ndegeocello, and Charlotte Day Wilson are all big influences in my own music, where they are pioneering that neo-soul sound but really pushing the sonic boundaries of many different influences to create something that still feels new and refreshing.
LUNA: As you were finding your footing as a musician early in your career, how did your partnership with your go-to producer, Lewis Moody, help you realize where you wanted to take your music sonically?
REYNE: I can honestly thank Lewis for being one of the main reasons that this album even exists. He reached out to me a few years ago hoping to collaborate on something, and he was that initial push I needed to actually bring my ideas to fruition. I think we work well together because he has the ability to bring out ideas in me that I don’t even know are there. He also has the knack of being able to work consistently for days on end, so it’s inspiring to be around. Our ideas worked well together, and thankfully we both had the same ideas as to how we wanted the music to sound and how we wanted it to progress. He was also very helpful in knowing when something was enough and to leave it as it is, leaning into the simplicity of something. More is not always better!
LUNA: Onto the album, what are the biggest differences between the atmosphere of the late night and early morning, especially on how it heightens your creativity and personal inspiration?
REYNE: To me, the early morning atmosphere feels very still and serene, whereas the late night atmosphere brings a quiet energy that feels more vibrant and energetic. I definitely create better late at night, as it feels like it brings around the peak of my ideas at their best moment, whereas the serenity of the morning is where the ideas can sometimes first form.
LUNA: Do you have a specific preference for either period of time?
REYNE: I’m much more of a night person, but I’ve always yearned to use the calm of the morning more to my abilities, as I love a mindful morning routine that enables that creative output. I can’t deny that I’m a big fan of a slow morning, which is where the initial theme and title of my album I’ve Been Sleeping Too Long first came around.
LUNA: On the second track, “Cold Morning,” I can definitely hear how it channels the comfort of a winter morning in bed. Preceding this, I get a sense that the opener “Safe” captures the vibe of having a blissful sleep and transitioning to the first hazy moments of waking up, leading into the next track. Would you say that this could be accurate for how you wanted to establish the tone for the start of the album?
REYNE: I love that you can hear that within the songs. “Cold Morning” was definitely written with a sense of warmth and coziness within it, which we tried to encapsulate with the piano part and within the broken-beat drum groove that highlights that crispness that can come with waking up to a cold morning. “Safe” wasn’t initially written with that strong intent around it, but once the theme of the album started to come to light, I do think we adapted it to fit that vibe. “Safe” definitely has a strong dynamic arc to it, that culminates in a big peak at the end with a saxophone feature from 30/70’s Josh Kelly, and I always loved how that worked into the transition of “Cold Morning.” I always enjoy piecing together the tracklist after the songs have been made as it can be really fun to see how the songs have captured the essence of the albums theme, even if it wasn’t intentional to begin with.
LUNA: There’s a very interesting stark turn from these two songs into the third track “Burnt,” since it comes to terms with grief over loss. Does this placement reflect how drastically the mood can shift mentally during your moments in isolation during the late/early hours of the day?
REYNE: Definitely. With a concept as profound and overbearing as grief, I think it can hit you so intensely within those moments where you have that time to be alone and to be with your thoughts a lot more. I do believe that a lot of the time, those are the moments and hours that help you make sense and make peace with times like that. From a writing perspective, it gives me the space to articulate what I might be going through and make sense of what I’m feeling. “Burnt” took a few different iterations to come to the one we ended up on, but I wanted to try and emulate that feeling of loss within the production, so having it much more stripped-back in terms of instrumentation was pivotal in getting that across.
LUNA: What was the vision behind the creation of “Left Alone,” which tackles the need for comfort when having a particular nightmare and what personally fuels this experience?
REYNE: Coming off the back of “Burnt,” “Left Alone” was a song that kind of flipped that feeling of intensity and turned it into something lighter and brighter. It was fuelled from those moments where you are altered from reality with a really intense dream and have the need for the safety of someone else to comfort you. I wanted to make sense of those times where dreams can feel so real and so closely connected to your reality, as it can be such an isolating and scary experience. Musically, I wanted it to highlight how the presence of someone else’s comfort can make that situation so much more bearable, so the song took on a more alt-pop direction. The title of the album actually came from the backing vocal part within the chorus of this song. We wanted to fill out the chorus a lot more and I was ad-libbing some call and response parts when the lyric idea came to me. Lyrically, I liked its hook and how it so closely connected the whole album together, so I decided to take it for the album name.
LUNA: Another really strong track was “Overthrown” — it covers male-dominated presence over women. Given the overall concept of the album, do you think that shedding light on this issue during the small hours also covers how it feels to be held back from speaking out openly?
REYNE: Yes, I think it does. Within the music scene, this can be a particularly frustrating and isolating experience, which ironically often then leads to these topics being covered within the space of songwriting and music, when we have those moments by ourselves to take reign over our own artistic choices within a safer space. At the same time, it can be very freeing to be able to express these certain topics in this way, where sometimes it can be easier to articulate what exactly we might be feeling.
LUNA: Are there any particular ideas you have in store for bringing this record to life, whether it’s through music videos or maybe even some themed after-hours performances?
REYNE: Stay tuned!
