FEATURE: Spotlight: Gretel Hänlyn — Music Musings & Such

FEATURE:

Spotlight

Gretel Hänlyn

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A remarkable young artist…

there is no doubting the promise and potential of the amazing Gretel Hänlyn. The West London artist is somebody that I am fairly fresh to. I wanted to spotlight Hänlyn and their incredible work. If you are new to one of the finest new artists emerging right now, this Fred Perry interview gives some useful overviews and details regarding Gretel Hänlyn’s musical loves and inspirations:

“Name, where are you from?

Gretel Hänlyn, Acton, West London.

Describe your style in three words?

Eclectic, dynamic and grungey.

What’s the best gig you’ve ever been to?

Probably the first one I went to, which was Take That on 'The Circus' Tour when I was about nine. My mum took me and we had to leave at 10pm coz it was a school night. I didn’t understand gigs and what it meant at that point, and it probably wasn’t actually the best gig I’ve been to, but it was the first time I’d experienced anything like that before.

If you could be on the line up with any two artists in history?

Jeff Buckley without a doubt. To be in the same room as a voice like that and to hear it for myself would be an honour, let alone to be in a line up. I’d also say The Stooges coz Iggy Pop is such an outrageously rock n roll performer. Apparently, he used to get his d*ck out a lot and really piss off his crowds. Brilliant.

Which subcultures have influenced you?

Growing up in London, I guess I’ve been influenced by quite a lot of different cultures and subcultures. The most obvious one is probably grunge though, it’s influenced every part of my life, from music to clothing. Not attitude though, I’m still a bit too nice.

If you could spend an hour with anyone from history?

Lou Reed. It’s a hard question coz you never know who is actually going to be interesting and who you’re going to get along with until you meet them, so I’m not dying to meet anyone in particular. I chose Lou Reed though because I love hearing a story. There’s a reason he was such a great lyricist and I think it’s coz he just had so many stories, and he often played storyteller in his songs.

A song that defines the teenage you?

'These Days' by Nico. It’s a song that resonated with me for so many years and I feel it sums up a lot of those years, better than another track could.

One record you would keep forever?

'Cosmogony' by Björk and The Hamrahlío Choir. It might be an odd choice for me but I can’t get tired of it no matter how many times I hear it, it’s so unique and in its own world”.

A genuinely great artist who is going to grow bigger and more successful, there is a lot of love and attention surrounding Gretel Hänlyn. This fascinating article discusses how Hänlyn has been putting out music for a bit, but now (2022) is a time when things are starting to heat up and get this incredible music to more people:

“After three hugely impressive singles, she certainly sounds like the future (baby) and has been picking up plaudits since her debut single “Slugeye” landed. Released in October 2021 and written & co-produced by Hänlyn alongside music producer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and all-around whizz kid Mura Masa, it highlighted her exquisite voice and ear for sombre yet darkly beautiful avant-pop. It’s a voice that perfectly fits Hänlyn’s oeuvre and her predilection for dark baroque pop-noir, having been raised on the crepuscular poetry of renowned chucklemeister Nick Cave. Furthermore, she possesses a voice imbued with a timeless quality and captivating depth, one that conjures up black ink being slowly poured into cream, full of doomed grandeur and faded glamour. Hänlyn has stated that “Slugeye” “is about a ‘low-life’ character that isn’t very liked. He has unfortunate qualities that even the best of us show at times. I guess he became less of a character created in one of my songs and more of an ongoing symbol of all the bad qualities we have and that we shouldn’t be quite so ashamed of*.” (*unless it was voting for Boris Johnson obvs, right kids ?).

Her next single “It’s The Future Baby” was even better and showcased her ability to utilise her darkly expressive vocals as an instrument to drive her songs forward and to weave compelling goth-pop narratives, as thematically she navigated the path from darkness toward the light. Of the single, she stated, “It’s The Future, Baby is me talking to a part of myself that used to be in a really bad state. I didn’t see much of a future for myself before I started writing music and as I wrote this song, I started to realise that I was living in the ‘future’ that everyone says to wait for, like that light at the end of the tunnel cliche.”

Hänlyn’s first release of 2022 “Motorbike” was a grunge tinged pop rumbler that Wolf Alice would doubtless have been proud to have written. When Hänlyn shouts the line “hey you’re not being loud enough” it’s a genuinely liberating fist in the air moment and you can ‌easily imagine festival crowds bouncing whilst singing along with a life-affirming post covid sense of brio. The video also features a cast of bikers and features a cameo from her Mum and Dad who seem to be enjoying themselves just a little bit too much dressed up as a latter-day Sid And Nancy! ( Did they ever give the clobber back? :) )

As well as being a fan of Nick Cave, Tim Buckley and Wolf Alice, Hänlyn was also a fan of Nirvana and initially began performing under the name “Maddy Bean” (incidentally her real name is Maddy Haenleinher) taking inspiration from Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love’s daughter Frances Bean. Whilst it’s highly unlikely she would never be confused with the hapless rubber-faced irritant played by Rowan Atkinson, in retrospect “Bean” probably wasn’t quite the vibe she was going for. As Lizzie Grant discovered, hitting on a name that kind of encapsulates your music can certainly help. I mean, would Nick Cave really be able to exude the same sort of dark gravitas if he’d release his music under the moniker Gavin Turnip? She finally settled on Gretel Hänlyn, which has just the right sort of dark exotic mystery and is also based on her familial name as well as a great aunt, who was raised on a vineyard in Germany and who, in her youth, bore a striking resemblance to Maddy. With the possibility of fewer Covid related disruptions, and based on her trio of stunning releases, 2022 looks set to be a big year for Gretel Hänlyn. Her debut EP is due to drop and you can get a ticket for her debut gig here if you’re interested, and quite frankly you should be!)”.

I am going to finish up with NME’s recent feature and spotlighting of Gretel Hänlyn. Within their radar, it is evident that here is someone primed for huge success very soon:

“Gretel Hänlyn’s voice isn’t one you’ll forget. Powerful and commanding, her rich, husky vocals dominate whatever soundscape they unfurl across, whether it’s the lo-fi electronics of Mura Masa‘s recent single ‘2gether’ where she takes the lead, or the gnarly alt-rock of her recent solo release, ‘Motorbike’. Her’s is a voice that the 19-year-old artist, real name Maddy Haenlein, is proud of. “No one’s ever said to change it,” she tells NME over Zoom from her parents’ house in Acton, west London: “If they did, I’d tell them to fuck off.”

“My vocals are the thing that if people like my music, it’s usually what draws them to it.” On each of the three tracks Haenlein has released under the Gretel Hänlyn moniker thus far, it’s her ethereal vocals – pitched somewhere between London Grammar’s Hannah Reid and Florence Welch – that’ll stop listeners in their tracks.

Yet it’s not something that’s always been there. “The voice that I sing with now, I don’t know that it’s necessarily the voice that I would have been born with,” she says. Born and raised in Acton, Haenlein’s first love of music came through boy bands like Take That and One Direction. From there, she started to pinch her dad’s records, drawn to the music of Nick Drake, The Killers and Pink Floyd, and took guitar lessons, but never vocal ones. “I kind of just found my own way there,” she says of developing her singing voice.

In her teens, Haenlein was admitted to hospital with an illness that saw her lose muscle mass, particularly around her diaphragm, which prevented her from singing. “When I regained the muscle and the control I was singing so hoarsely and so differently, and I never actually learned how to sing properly again,” she says.

It was in recovery that she started to write her own songs. “It was the only thing that could console me, you know, and that didn’t feel empty, was when I was trying to sing. It sounded really bad for a long time because I couldn’t sing – but then I got it back.” Singing over a “frog in my throat” and “almost through my jaw,” she relearned the skill and adjusted her style, never feeling the need to correct her tone to a more ‘proper’ sound, drawn instead to the unconventional but appealing new one.

When Haenlein turned 16, she started to gig at places like The Basement Door in Richmond under the name “Maddy Bean”, a pseudonym inspired by Kurt Cobain’s daughter, Francis Bean Cobain. “I very quickly realised that I’ve made a terrible mistake, and literally anything was better than Bean”, she laughs.

The moniker Gretel Hänlyn came later. Set to study physics and philosophy at university, it was her mum who convinced her to sack off the degree and pursue music. “She just said: ‘Quit the day job. Don’t go to school. Just do music, because this is what you’re meant to do’”. Haenlein selected the name Gretel Hänlyn, after her great aunt. The OG Gretel Hänlyn grew up in Germany on a vineyard and bears an uncanny physical resemblance to Haenlein. “She had a really interesting history herself with mental health issues and deranged family members,” she says of her doppelgänger. “I just completely found myself hooked on that name.”

Haenlein is now gearing up to release her debut EP in later this year, a splendid thing that hops from euphoric indie-rock (‘Motorbike’) to Britpop-inspired belters (‘It’s The Future Baby’) and maximalist-psychedelia (‘Generation Game’). On the project, she worked closely with dance don Mura Masa, who co-wrote and co-produced debut single ‘Slugeye’, and returned the favour by lending her vocals to Mura Masa’s wobbly 2021 single ‘2gether’.

A simply awesome and awe-inspiring artist, go and follow Gretel Hänlyn and check out music that is among the best out there right now. I feel this year and next will be very exciting ones for Hänlyn. Here is someone that everyone needs…