Performing as her solo indie project Sylvee, and previously in the duo Bank Land, Sarah Ryland has developed a reputation for dark, sharp-edged electropop. With her third solo EP, ‘Tender,’ the Nelson singer-songwriter makes an unexpected pivot into country, resulting in an emotive body of work which is certainly aptly titled.

June 2026 has been a busy month for Sarah Ryland. Not only did she just release ‘Tender’, her third Sylvee EP since 2019, but she’s expecting her first baby.

“It’s just such a crazy time!” she says. “When you’ve got a baby coming that is your main focus, but once you put the EP out, you can’t just stop promoting it, you know? So I’m intrigued to see how it’s going to have its little journey going out into the world. I know that everyone’s like, your life’s gonna be really different now and super busy, but I still feel excited about what might come next, and I’m not going to stop. I just will figure out how I’m going to do it going forward.”

It’s a good thing too, because ‘Tender’ is undoubtedly a new beginning. It marks Sylvee’s first foray into country music, something even she couldn’t have foreseen.

“My husband has always loved country music, and I would listen when he was listening to it, and I just never really understood it. And then all of a sudden, something just changed, and I was obsessed with it – and then I literally listened to nothing but country music for a couple of years. This is just what came out.”

When she took the idea to her longtime producer Joel Jones, he was surprised but supportive.

“I was talking to him about the next project, and I was like, ‘I think I want to do country,’ and it was kind of a bit before country had started to boom in NZ. He was intrigued, but hadn’t really done anything country, and so I guess at the start, we didn’t know if that was going to work for us, together, to do. But he’s so good, like he just kind of got on board! I made him a playlist of stuff that I’d been listening to, so that he could really get into my thought process around it. And it just kind of worked out.”

Recording happened between Jones’ Auckland home studio, drummer Tom Broome’s studio and Parachute Studios, with Ryland recording additional vocals at her Nelson home. Broome and pedal steel player Neil Watson, both of whom tour with NZ country icon Tami Nielson, are featured musicians.

“Any time Neil was playing the pedal steel I was just like crying probably, in the corner,” she gushes. “He’s just so amazing, and it’s such a beautiful sound, and, like, what an amazing skill. There’s not a lot of people who play pedal steel around NZ.

“That felt really nice to me, to be able to have people involved that truly played country music. And it was always very important to me to have real musicians on this project. Otherwise it just doesn’t really feel like you’re respecting the genre in a way. It is such an incredible genre, and I’m just coming into it, like, what do I know? I’m just doing my own kind of take on it!”

The guitar, which Ryland took charge of herself, adds another tender aspect to the recording.

“I was gifted a Martin guitar from somebody who passed. It was handed down to me. It’s a beautiful guitar and I used that on the majority of these songs, which has felt really special to me. It’s kind of like his musical journey gets to carry on. It’s got such a nice sound, so that was pretty special too.”

Asked if she will ever return to pop music, Ryland is clearly uncertain.

“This project felt the easiest to me,” she says. “I wrote the majority of the songs by myself at home, and then I took them to Joel and we finished them. A lot of the time with pop music, particularly with the last project I had done, it was sort of; you go to a session and you start from scratch with a producer or with other writers, which was still amazing. But I think this was just a very personal way to work, and I really enjoyed that process. I think it’s always fun to explore new things and go back to old things, but I don’t know if I will go back to pop music necessarily.”

A stand out among the EP’s six tracks is Before I Met You, which was produced by Dan Martin and features former Christchurch singer-songwriter, now UK-based, Sam Heselwood – who Ryland admits she has never met. 

“Joel knew Sam because he had been working with him previously. So he did sort of connect us. I’ve always loved Sam’s voice and I was shocked and really happy when I asked if he wanted to do it and he said yes! He’s living in the UK at the moment, so we did it all online, just kind of sending back parts and forth, and he wrote the bridge.

“I actually wrote that song with my brother, also called Sam,” she says laughing. “I had always imagined Before I Met You as a bit of a duet, but it wasn’t the right kind of song to sing with my brother, so I was like, ‘It just needs to be the right kind of voice’. 

“Sam has got the most incredible range. Unfortunately, even though he nailed that song, I still think, if you listen to his music, you can hear way more of his range, which is just like phenomenal.”

Another highlight is Grace Over Hurt, a touching tribute to Ryland’s mother.

“I do just feel really lucky to have grown up with her as a mum. There’s also a little line at the end where I say, ‘Hey buddy’, and it was because I did the vocals at home and I could feel the baby kicking, so I was just talking to him. We decided to put that in at the end, because it just felt like a bit of a full circle moment where the song was about my mum, but then I’m going on my own journey into motherhood myself.”