Airling - Hard To Sleep, Easy To Dream (LP) - Violet Translucent Vinyl

Airling’s debut album, Hard to Sleep, Easy to Dream, arrived in 2017 and still feels like a late night you don’t want to end. Airling is Brisbane artist Hannah Shepherd, and she’s long had a knack for turning quiet thoughts into songs that hum under the skin. The album takes that impulse and gives it space to breathe. It’s intimate but not small, a record that leans into texture and atmosphere while keeping the melodies close enough to hum on the walk home.

You can hear the years of craft behind it. Shepherd had already floated across airwaves with early EPs and a standout collaboration with Japanese Wallpaper on Forces, and she brings that same soft-focus clarity here. The production is carefully arranged, with glowing synth beds, pillow-soft harmonies, and drums that feel roomy rather than heavy. Nothing is cluttered. Every detail seems placed with purpose, so the songs bloom slowly and then stick around.

Move Me works like a thesis statement. It’s all shimmering keys, subtle guitar runs, and a vocal that rides the top of the mix like a second light source. Airling doesn’t belt. She traces outlines, and the emotion fills in. Not a Fighter is the flip side, a song about gentle resilience that never needs to raise its voice to land the punch. She sings about softness without making it fragile, and that might be the album’s quiet magic. The title hints at sleeplessness and escapism, but these aren’t escapist songs. They look you in the eye, then show you another room behind it.

There’s a strong Melbourne connection in the way this record moves, which makes sense given its release through Pieater, the indie label known for Big Scary and #1 Dads. Fans of that circle will recognize the patient pacing and attention to negative space. It is pop that likes a dimmer switch. A lot of records try this moody synth-pop palette and end up washed out. Hard to Sleep, Easy to Dream keeps the colors vivid. The bass lines are warm, the percussion has air and wood in it, and Shepherd’s voice never feels treated past recognition. On first pass, it’s pretty. On the third, you start noticing how much is happening at the edges.

The songwriting never gets lost in the glow. These lyrics are specific and unafraid of vulnerability. You catch lines about distance, about staying when it would be easier to drift, about the small kindnesses that get two people through a hard week. There’s romance here, but also practicality. It gives the album that rare feeling of an artist letting you sit in the room while a thought becomes a truth. The sequencing helps, too. It flows like a real night, upticks of energy folded into long sighs, with just enough lift to keep you awake.

If you collect, this is one you’d instinctively file next to your dream-pop staples and your favorite late-night R&B. I’ve seen folks hunting for Airling vinyl for years, and I get it. Hard to Sleep, Easy to Dream vinyl would make a lot of sense for people who live through speakers as much as headphones, and if you buy Airling records online you’ll know copies vanish fast whenever a limited run appears. I’ve even overheard someone at a Melbourne record store ask about Airling albums on vinyl between flipping through a stack of local pressings. That’s the kind of quiet cult this record has built in Australia, the word-of-mouth kind that travels with crate diggers and radio hosts who still love a soft fade.

Hard to Sleep, Easy to Dream isn’t flashy, yet it lingers. Put it on late and it adjusts the room. The synths glow like streetlights, the vocals feel close enough to touch, and the songs carry a calm that isn’t sleepy so much as steady. If you’re curating a shelf of vinyl records Australia has given the world of after-hours listening, make space for it. And if you’re searching for Hard to Sleep, Easy to Dream vinyl or just revisiting Airling with fresh ears, the record rewards you with the same thing every time. It lets you exhale, then find a little courage in the quiet.