Sienna Spiro - Sink Now, Swim Later

SIENNA SPIRO has the type of voice that stays with you long after her music has left the room. Her effortlessly soulful tone makes it hard to believe that the London-born singer and songwriter is just 19 years old — not to mention her gift for raw yet cinematic storytelling and the restraint heard in her songs, which are undeniably classic but also subtly of their time. Yes, she’s earned the respect of music visionaries like SZA, Mark Ronson and FINNEAS, but she’s connected with audiences at a depth usually unreachable for artists with only five official songs to their name. Of course, that changes with her debut EP, SINK NOW, SWIM LATER.

The strikingly spare but hugely impactful set is SIENNA’s proper introduction to the world. An honest and evocative collection songs written between the ages of 16 and 18, the EP takes the listener on a journey divided into two distinct phases, “SINK” and “SWIM” — each capturing a spectrum of emotions from love and longing to fantasy and confusion, from grief and self-denial to growth and transformation. To bring her vision to life, SIENNA with producers like J Moon (Miley Cyrus, Dua Lipa), Yakob (SZA, Kali Uchis), Sol Was (SG Lewis, Beyoncé), Max Wolfgang (Sia, Kelly Clarkson), and Fred Ball (Rihanna, Jessie Ware). Though theirs was a light touch, pairing piano, guitar, and strings with gently shimmering effects and enveloping atmosphere. 

“It’s all intentionally stripped back. It’s definitely a ‘get to know me’ EP,” says SIENNA, although the project’s centerpiece “MAYBE.” — with its cascading keys and stunning vocals — already topped four viral Spotify charts around the world, amassed 515 million views on TikTok, and racked up over 48 million global streams across platforms to date. She continues, “A lot of the songs are super personal and have stories behind them, which will set up what comes next.” 

In a departure from the elegantly timeless, piano-driven soundscape of “MAYBE.,” SIENNA’s new track “ORIGAMI” (named a “Song You Need To Know” by Rolling Stone,) encompasses a gently inventive arrangement of shadowy beats, surreal textures, and gorgeously strange vocal effects. An intimate portrait of obsession, the hypnotic track tells the tale of longing for someone who doesn’t even know you exist, striking a rare balance of yearning and determination (from the second verse: “I found a new religion/You’re the only mission.”)

SIENNA was born and raised in London, in a warm household where Sinatra records were on repeat alongside a steady diet of blues, soul, and jazz. As a child, she found her voice imitating the likes of Sarah Vaughan and Etta James — “They taught me how to sing,” she says — while outside her door, the city offered her a world of sonic textures and seemingly endless venues for live music. That proposition was all the more inspiring given her synesthesia, a condition shared by many artists that allows them to see colors when listening to certain musical notes.

At 10, while absorbing Michael Jackson’s catalog, SIENNA wrote her first song, “Lady in the Mirror.” “I was getting bullied in school and I was so misunderstood,” she says. “The only person who knew what I was going through was me.” But music was a strong enough lifeline that she soon signed up for open-mic night at a pub in nearby Chiswick, where she debuted her original song — as a tween. She continued to sing at the pub for several years after that and, as the opportunities arose, volunteered for every music-leaning extracurricular school had to offer.

“The only thing that felt true and natural was to sing and make music,” SIENNA says, although there was one exception to her sign-up spree — to date, she’s only had a single singing lesson, which seems impossible given her breathtaking range and control. But she tried it and hated being told how to do things technically. Instead she found herself increasingly drawn to singers and songwriters who carved their own expressive paths, from Amy Winehouse to Frank Ocean.

SIENNA’s hypnotic vocals first went viral when she was 16, covering FINNEAS’ “Break My Heart Again” in a TikTok duet with the beloved UK pianist Sheridan Coldstream. Remarkably, it was the first video she ever uploaded of herself singing, and she posted it on her first day at music school. The clip quickly clocked over 300,000 views and, three weeks later, she had a manager. She followed with her powerhouse cover of Donald Glover’s “Redbone,” which has racked up over 6 million views on TikTok alone earning a massive online following before ever sharing her original music. 

Two years later, in the spring of 2024, SIENNA released her hauntingly yearning and deeply vulnerable debut single “NEED ME,” which has so far accumulated 6 million streams and happens to have been the first taste of SINK NOW, SWIM LATER. In the nine months that passed ahead of the EP, with only five songs out, SIENNA racked up: over 23 million likes on TikTok; 2 million monthly listeners on Spotify; more than 900,000 followers across her social channels; cosigns from the likes of SZA and Snoh Aalegra; and acclaim from Stereogum’s “The Sound of 2025” roundup, Pigeons & Planes’ “10 New Artists You Should Listen To This Week,” and Dazed’s coveted “10 Musicians to Watch in 2025” list.

For SIENNA, though, the highlight was playing her first headline show at London’s Hoxton Hall in November. Having spent the past two years building a career online — and all her days before that struggling to find footing among her peers — the hometown gig was revelatory. It was her first chance to see her fans in real life. Witnessing people show up for her — and sing her words back to her — was, in her words, “the craziest thing that’s happened to me so far in my life.”

That experience ignited in SIENNA a taste for the stage and with her highly anticipated debut EP finally here, she’s plotting out a busy year that so far includes several festival slots and a run through Australia. For SIENNA there never was a plan B, “I would rather die than not be doing music,” she says. “I really don't think I'm meant to do anything else other than this.”