Joyful groove, vintage sound, and unfiltered sincerity – that’s what Harena is all about. The young artist from the region between Upper Savoy and Geneva has found his own formula: pop plus soul, live instruments plus honest stories, groove plus soulfulness. The result is a warm, feel‑good sound. The debut EP “Feel It Again”, released on February 5, is the result of patience, clear vision, and love for detail. We talked with Harena about finding his own sound, inspiration, working with Michael Alvarado, and the steps that await him after the release of his first record. The conversation turned out warm, a little ironic, and sincere.

Hi, Harena! Glad you found time for a conversation. Let’s start with something obvious but curious: is “Harena” a pseudonym with a secret or just a beautiful coincidence – why exactly this name? Tell us a bit about yourself.

Hi, Of course, thank you for having me. I get that a lot, Harena is actually my first name. There’s no real secret behind it, but it’s name/word from Madagascar, that’s where my family is from, and it actually means “treasure”.

Every musician has their own starting point – a moment when they realize that music is theirs. Did you have such a moment?

I feel like it’s cliché, but I have been singing since I was a baby, or toddler. I have pictures and videos of a toddler-me with a remote as a mic on the living room table singing along to the songs that were played on our old TV. So I think I can say that I was born with the passion of singing inside of me. Yes, I kind of always knew I wanted to do that. Also I started to learn music theory at a very young age, and I took classical piano lessons for 10 years. Music has always been a part of my life, there’s always music at home. I have a musical family actually, so everything led me into pursuing that path.

I read that you studied different directions in pop music before you found your own sound. It’s like assembling a puzzle out of different styles. How did you understand: “Here it is, my sound, from here I can only go deeper”?

Yes, I worked with two producers before I worked on my EP with my current producer. With the first two, it was my very first time working with professionals, and it was hard for me to express my vision and ideas properly, and also I wasn’t really sure of the direction I wanted to take, what would be best for me, my voice and my stories. I’ve always loved mainstream pop music, but there’s something with pop-soul music that hits differently, emotionally and also vocally for me. One summer I discovered this New York band called Lawrence, and I was like “that’s it ! That’s the kind of music I want to do”, something organic with live instruments, that makes you feel warm inside.

While preparing for our conversation, I listened to some of your tracks – and, you know, there’s definitely a special spark there. Especially “Baby We Can Stay” and “We’re Goin Down” caught my attention. Tell me, do you have a personal favorite?

Thank you ! Do I have a personal favorite? First of all, I really love them all. Because of all the process that happened to create those songs I’m attached to all of them. But yeah there’s some of them that I kind of like a little more. My 1st favorite is, like you, “Baby We can Stay”, which is why I chose that one to be the first single of the EP to be released,I just love the groove, and the funky touch, it’s such a feel good song. If you listen to it on your way to work there’s no way you’ll be in a bad mood. My 2nd favorite is “Feel It Again”, there’s this little motown feel that I adore ! and then there’s “Long Time”, it’s also such a feel good song.

Your lyrics are very personal – you can feel it. However, any author always adds imagined details. Do you write only about what you’ve experienced yourself, or do you sometimes invent stories?

For this EP, I wanted it to be very personal, and relatable. So I decided to sing about things that really happened to me. Those are real stories. I wanted people to connect with me and my stories. Everybody goes through all of those things. I wanted to stay real so people can know that they’re not alone.

Let’s talk about your new project. The EP “Feel It Again” is a more cohesive story than a single. Sometimes it’s a mosaic of different moods. Please describe the overall mood of your new release.

Yes, each song has its own mood, but the overall mood is romantic feel good music. It brings hope, joy. I wanted this EP to be a safe place for people, a place where they can recharge in good emotions.

“Feel It Again” is marked by serious production and a high-level team. Michael Alvarado is a notable figure in the industry, and it seems your collaboration didn’t happen by chance. How did you find each other?

So I have known Michael since I was 14 years old. Back in the day, there was this app called Vine, RIP Vine. And he was part of this band called Us the duo. That’s how I discovered him. I was a big fan since then, so obviously I started to follow him on other social media and everything. Michael Alvarado is an AMAZING musician and singer. We would listen to what he’s done on youtube with my brothers and we would always be shocked about his arrangement and everything. Mind you, he didn’t know who I was at the time. In summer 2024, he announced on his instagram that he would be starting producing for artists so I took the chance. I contacted him, and replied and from there it was like love at first sight but for music. Because I knew how talented he is, and how big of an honor it would be to work with him, I had to jump on the chance. I knew he was the one who could make my vision come to life. We just clicked musically and as humans too. He believed in me and in my project. He’s incredible ! I feel so lucky and blessed !

The mastering of your release was done by Dan Millis – a name behind many major projects. Do you remember your feeling when you first played the final version of the EP?

So I didn’t know that it would be Dan who would master the EP. Dan is a friend of Michael, and one day Michael asked me “so I have this friend who’s top tier in master engineering, so you can choose either I master your songs or he will, but you should know that he won some grammys for the mastering he did”. and I was like “WHAT ?! A Well known mastering engineer who worked with big names in the industry is going to listen and work on my songs?!”. This was surreal when he said that. So I was like, of course you can ask him if he can, that would be an honor ! And when I listened to the final master, I was in such a euphoric state, not only because it sounded awesome, but because I was realizing that I got to work with two awesome people!

I think music is often romanticized, but it actually requires no less discipline than sports. What percentage of your creativity is improvisation, and how much is strict structure?

I think for me it’s like sports like you said. I need structure. Without it, I struggle and I don’t even know where to start, or I would start something and then stop it and start something new and never go back to the first one. Michael really helped me with that. We co-wrote the songs together and he was a big help with focusing all my ideas, bringing them into lyrics and everything.

Leonardo da Vinci said that art is never finished – only abandoned. It seems that’s exactly about you: after the release of the EP, a new chapter begins. What’s next?

What’s next are hopefully more live shows, some singles, and hopefully a 2nd EP. But let this first EP live a little bit.

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