Powley told the Rotorua Daily Post she had spent most of her career looking “inward”. But with album number two, she had turned her gaze “outward”.
Her debut album, Self Portrait of a Woman Unravelling, released in 2023, was the result of three years of emotional excavation. She said it was a deeply personal project that saw her try to make sense of herself, her past and her place in the world.
The Hamurana artist said she felt “a little spun out” afterwards, unsure what to say next after pouring so much into one defining project.
It took about six months after finishing her first album before the direction for Set Her Free became clear.
The focus was love – not just romantic love, but the quieter, often overlooked kinds: friendship, lineage, womanhood and self-love.
Taking shape over about two years, the album was written across Auckland, Los Angeles, Nashville and Bali, and refined through international songwriting camps and studio sessions with executive producer Ben Malone.
She said once the concept emerged, the songs began to fall into place around three central threads: self-love, romantic love and the love found in womanhood.
American singer Josh Groban. Photo / Supplied
The first focused on learning how to become “the love of my own life”, Powley said, unlearning the habit of trying to become someone else’s ideal while neglecting her own needs.
The second explored romantic relationships, recognising how it was unfair to expect one person to fulfil every emotional role.
The third centred on the relationships between women, particularly friendships and maternal lineage, which Powley described as the most constant form of love in her life.
One of the album’s most personal songs, Mother’s Mother, paid tribute to generations of women before Powley, using the metaphor of a garden to describe how her life had been shaped by sacrifices she would never fully see.
Rotorua singer-songwriter Alayna Powley will release her second album, “Set Her Free”, on February 13. Photo / Supplied
Powley said Mother’s Mother felt like a way “to finally give my mum flowers” too, as it was her music teacher dad, Rob Powley, who discovered her vocal ability when she was 6 years old.
Music was something she associated mainly with him.
Powley started making her own music and wrote her first song when she was about 15.
She said it felt special to share that side of her creative world with her mum, and her mum was equally touched by the song, even appearing subtly in the music video.
The album’s latest single, Animal, arrived unexpectedly during a studio session, written spontaneously just before she was meant to record vocals for another track.
Powley described the song as being written by her body rather than her mind, and said it became a pivotal moment in her self-love journey.
The track centres on the idea that you “can’t expect someone to love you into loving yourself”.
Powley described the song “Animal” as being written by her body rather than her mind. Photo / Supplied
The album takes its name from its final track, Set Her Free, a minimalist piece built from a studio jam that became the emotional anchor of the project.
It was only months later, while reviewing the track list, that Powley realised the phrase was the answer to every song title on the record.
“Love of My Life – set her free. Mother’s Mother – set her free. Animal – set her free.”
Rather than trying to define herself, Set Her Free becomes a record about releasing control and letting go of fixed identities, expectations and the need for certainty.
Powley said the part she was most proud of was her voice, which she felt had grown across a wider emotional and sonic range on this album.
She saw the record as something to sit with – a body of work designed to be listened to from start to finish, with each song flowing into the next and telling a broader story, rather than being played in the background.
Powley hoped listeners would find their own meaning in the songs.
She believed creativity happened in seasons – and that rest and space were just as important as productivity.
Annabel Reid is a multimedia journalist for the Bay of Plenty Times and Rotorua Daily Post, based in Rotorua. Originally from Hawke’s Bay, she has a Bachelor of Communications from the University of Canterbury.