TNAM X HEY, NOTHING
25 March 2026
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Her second single ‘Henfield’, which is part of her forthcoming debut EP ‘Garden Shed’, is an ode to this persistent and ever growing feeling of running out of time. In a time when routines and mundane jobs can take the lead in one’s life, it’s easy to feel like you never have time for the things you actually want to do.
Written and recorded outdoors, in the woods of Eat Sussex, ‘Henfield’ expresses all these daily concerns of time slipping through your hands and leaving you unable to dedicate yourself to creative ideas you wish to develop. The sounds of nature in combination with REA’s delicate voice and soft guitar playing, feel like they’re coming straight out of an old vinyl record you found at your grandma’s cottage.
Written and recorded outdoors, in the woods of East Sussex, ‘Henfield’ expresses all these daily concerns of time slipping through your hands and leaving you unable to dedicate yourself to creative ideas you wish to develop. The live sounds of nature in combination with REA’s delicate voice and soft guitar playing, feel like they’re coming straight out of an old vinyl record you found at your grandma’s cottage.
‘Henfield’ is a genuinely bitter-sweet song that invites us to take a walk in nature and connect with its raw, quiet and innocent elements. It invites us to remember who we really are and be present in these little moments of peace that nature can give us, outside of the modern world’s loudness.
I asked REA about the meaning of ‘Henfield’ and she shared with me a great story about what inspired her to write this song and the different pursuit she took in her songwriting process.
“So, the song is named after Henfield, a tiny little village outside of Brighton near the South Downs. Me and my boyfriend, Jed, both write music and we were feeling a bit run down from the 9 to 5 life and like always running out of time. I had all these ideas and things I wanted to do but never felt like I had the time or the headspace to do them. So, we spontaneously decided one day to go to a random place in the middle of nowhere and just have a songwriting weekend. We found this cute little cottage in Henfield, booked it and we just wrote songs outside in nature for the entire weekend.
I wrote ‘Henfield’ with Jed, about that feeling and the reason why we went there in the first place, and the next day my producer Josh and friend Leslie came to record it at this place we found, called ‘Woods Mill Nature Reserve’. It’s my favourite song on the EP, and it’s funny to think that it started as just a random almost unfinished idea which we developed in the woods the next day”
It was also a different way of songwriting for me; I usually write the guitar and then the melody and stick with the original composition, but this time Josh wrote this kind of country/folk style guitar, and I sang the song over it. This really changed the feel of the song from something more melancholy to something more hopeful.
‘Henfield’ is the second single of REA’s long-awaited 4-track debut EP ‘Garden Shed’ which comes out on April 17th. Produced by Josh Harrison (The Cure, Royal Blood, Lovejoy), and with tracks recorded in a secluded woodland in the South Downs, the EP is an experimental venture rooted in nature; it carries a raw, earthy nostalgia, reminiscent to indie folk projects of Bon Iver, Adrianne Lenker, and Hana Stretton.
Pre-save it now on all streaming platforms here, and follow REA on @reaamusic
