SIENNA SPIRO: SINK / SWIM

Vasili Papathanasopoulos
May 5
6 min read

Updated: May 5

MAY 2025

Photographs by Vasili Papathanasopoulos.

Having only made her debut twelve months ago, 19-year-old singer-songwriter Sienna Spiro has quickly amassed a steady following - over fifty million streams, 1.4 million monthly listeners, and hundreds of thousands of fans online. Her cover of Donald Glover’s Redbone attracted global attention, prior to the release of any original music from the singer. With early co-signs from superstars including SZA, Mark Ronson, FINNEAS, and more, Spiro is breaking out with the release of her debut EP, SINK NOW, SWIM LATER.

In February this year, Spiro made her first visit down under, where she performed a one-off show at Pleasure Club in Newtown. We met in the grand foyer of Universal Music’s Sydney office, days before the show and only minutes after she performed an acoustic set for the Australian branch of her record label. We spent the first few minutes speaking of our heritage (she speculates there may be some Greek in her bloodline), before delving in to the path that led her to that twenty one hour flight from London to Sydney. We start at the very beginning.

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“My dad actually introduced me to music when I was super young. He would play like all old songs and jazz records in the house.” It’s clear to see how these formative years have informed Spiro’s artistry, often leaning into jazz-influenced sonics and capturing the raw vocal essence of some of the genres greats. She cites Nina Simone, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye and Frank Sinatra as the artists who led her towards music, stating “that's who taught me to sing.” When listening to Spiro’s music, the influences are clear beyond genre and sonics. There is a timeless quality to SINK NOW, SWIM LATER, present in both Spiro’s vocals and her songwriting abilities. The emotional maturity captured across the collection of songs stems into both the EP’s sound and thematic exploration, which is presented in two juxtaposing parts; SINK and SWIM.

On the EP’s first half SINK, songs BUTTERFLY EFFECT, NEED ME, I DON’T HAVE YOU, TAXI DRIVER and MAYBE hone in on themes of self-doubt and inner-turmoil. Whilst SWIM represents a budding empowerment and path to self-discovery on BACK TO BLONDE, ORIGAMI and CYANIDE.

Each soundscape crafted throughout the EP takes a stripped back approach, led by piano, strings and guitars to create space for Spiro’s vocals to take centre stage. Beyond this, she wanted to introduce listeners to her world and create a genuine bond with those who find a piece of themselves within her music. “This is my first ever project and I really wanted people to be able to get to know me and also hear the real songs and connect to them in the way that I'd want them to.” Weaving together threads of jazz and R&B, brief notes of folk and pop are peppered throughout but never overpower the EP’s overriding sound. “It's a combination of things that I grew up listening to,” she states. “it's kind of influenced by everything I've ever been inspired by.” There’s a cinematic presence that runs throughout SINK NOW, SWIM LATER, due to the swelling strings and sometimes intimate, sometimes commanding piano work. Spiro tapped J Moon (Miley Cyrus, Dua Lipa), Yakob (SZA, Lauv), Sol Was (SG Lewis, Beyoncé), Max Wolfgang (Sia, Kelly Clarkson) and Fred Ball (Rihanna, Jessie Ware) on production duties, following a period of feeling the struggle of finding collaborators who fit within her world. "I kind of went through two years of really trying to find the people that understood me and understood what I wanted to make. I think I found those people… but finding the people that understand that and support it and get the vision and give you the space to be who you need to be was really important.” The EP’s sombre nature builds towards it’s climax, CYANIDE, which takes a darker turn and relies on electric guitar work to scratch the surface on an expansion of sound for the singer - and perhaps a hint of what lies ahead.

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Her raspy and textural tone glides above each instrumental like a velvety stream, effortlessly moving between her lower register and soaring top notes. There’s qualities within her tone that could be likened to Adele and Amy Winehouse. However, it would be a disservice to compare her to her predecessors. Spiro is a strong and powerful vocalist within her own right, standing out from her fellow contemporaries. There is a richness to her timbre that lures you in and captivates your attention, fuelled by emotional performances that bring intimate and storytelling lyricism to life. She tells me she thought she “wasn't a very good singer for a while,” and that songwriting helped her find her voice not only as a singer, but as an observer of the world around her. “You keep evolving, you keep trying to be more honest. You keep trying to turn bad things that happen into better things. You live more life, you know?” Spiro penned her first song at the age of ten, titled Lady in the Mirror, and has spent her days since writing songs. Whilst she acknowledges, “I'm only 19, not much has happened yet,” her songwriting perfectly captures the evolutionary period of your late teens and the juxtaposing emotions and turmoils of entering adulthood. “The EP was written over a period of change from like sixteen to eighteen, which is a period of uncontrollable change and seems like the beginnings and endings of relationships, body image, insecurity, falling in love, falling out of love. God, what else? Delusion, self-deprecation, toxicity. So I think the EP is a product of that and it's very introspective. They are kind of documents of the time, and of stories and things I went through at the time.” As the songs unfold, Spiro dissects all these themes, analysing the influence they have held on her almost as an outsider - whilst remaining in touch with her own feelings. She tells me songwriting serves as a means to process her own emotions, with songs serving as pseudo-diary entries. “I've documented my whole life through a song. That's kind of how I've gone through it to be honest.” Coming out on the other side, she ponders how the songs make her feel now. She concludes that NEED ME is likely to forever hold weight within her emotions. The track also served as her introduction to the world as a songwriter. “I'm very proud of that song and I think it had everything in it that I wanted as a first song and that I want people to know about me.”

It is interesting to note that Sprio has a form of synaesthesia - chromesthesia, a perceptual phenomenon where, in Spiro’s case, hearing music evokes a visual experience of colour. There are varying ways colour can be associated with sound in these cases, for instance particular notes, instruments, vocal tones or entire songs could evoke a particular colour. It’s believed chromesthesia is a result of cross-wiring between auditory and visual areas in the brain—particularly between the auditory cortex and the visual color-processing area. Research has shown chromesthesia is more often than not prevalent in cases where an individual has perfect pitch, ultimately suggesting enhanced auditory perception may support synaesthetic experiences. I ask her how this feeds into her songwriting, and how it influences the process. She tells me that the colours present themselves whilst she is writing the songs line by line, and that each lyric needs to align with the colour of its predecessor. “It really affects the writing to be honest. I'll be kind of being like, 'no, this line isn't the same colour as the before. This is green.' I see it whilst it's happening, and to be honest if I don't see a colour with a song, which sometimes happens, I can't connect to it and I don't like it.” As for the colours of SINK NOW, SWIM LATER, Spiro broke it down for me. “Well, BUTTERFLY EFFECT was blue immediately, and if you go on the visualiser it is the shade of blue that the butterfly is. It's kind of that x-ray butterfly kind of blue. NEED ME; red, immediately. TAXI DRIVER was blue and orange. Signage is also blue. Um, origami was orange and White. BACK TO BLONDE was kind of this like goldy colour, like a brownie golden. MAYBE; yellow.”

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It has been two months since the release of SINK NOW, SWIM LATER, Spiro is in the midst of a tour in support of the EP, with shows in Berlin and London set to take place this week. She will then return to North America in July, supporting Teddy Swims on his national tour. When asking on performing live and the thoughts that arise when hitting the stage, she responds, “Hopefully I black out and I wake up on the other side and it's good.” She still cites Sydney as the best crowd she has played to - according to her latest Instagram Q&A. Looking ahead, the singer has already started teasing new music online and on tour that builds upon what she has established on her debut EP and expands upon it. As she puts it, “It keeps evolving.”