Gretta Ray will release her third studio album, Heartsong, on October 30 through EMI Music Australia, marking a return to a more stripped-back songwriting approach following Positive Spin.
by Paul Cashmere
Gretta Ray will release Heartsong, her third studio album, on October 30 through EMI Music Australia, with the title track released as the record’s latest preview. Co-written with Matt Corby, “Heartsong” follows “Swimming, Crying”, released in June, and introduces an album shaped by the Melbourne singer-songwriter’s experience of serious illness, recovery and a reassessment of her priorities.
The album represents a significant change in direction from 2023’s Positive Spin, which placed Ray’s songwriting within a more expansive pop framework. Heartsong instead draws on the stripped-back qualities associated with her earlier work, combining piano, guitar, flowing melodies and intimate songwriting while addressing loss, grief, identity and uncertainty.
Ray has described the album as a record of the rapid changes that followed a life-altering health crisis at the age of 26. After being diagnosed with infective endocarditis in 2024, shortly after relocating to London, she cancelled her remaining touring commitments for that year. The experience subsequently became central to the writing of Heartsong.
The album was co-produced by Matt Corby and Gab Strum. Corby’s involvement extends to the title song, where the pair collaborated on the writing. “Heartsong” opens with piano and a gospel-influenced warmth before moving into a song concerned with the fragility of life and the importance of retaining a sense of self during periods of upheaval.
Ray has characterised the album as an examination of loss in several forms, including the loss of her physical and mental wellbeing. She has also described the writing process as a way of sitting with sadness while reconsidering what she valued most in her life.
That perspective places Heartsong in a different position from Positive Spin. The 2023 album was preceded by “Dear Seventeen”, “Heartbreak Baby”, “America Forever” and “Don’t Date the Teenager”, with “America Forever” featuring Maisie Peters and Carol Ades. Positive Spin was followed in 2024 by Positive Spin +, which expanded the project with reworked material and additional songs including “Roses” and “Better”, her collaboration with Japanese Wallpaper.
Ray’s recorded career began with the 2016 EP Elsewhere, establishing her as a young Australian songwriter working from an indie-folk foundation. That year she won the Triple J Unearthed competition with “Drive” and also took first place in the Vanda & Young Global Songwriting Competition for the same song.
Her second EP, Here and Now, followed in 2018, before she moved towards a broader pop sound on her debut studio album, Begin to Look Around, released in August 2021. The album reached No. 13 on the ARIA Albums Chart and was nominated for Australian Album of the Year at the J Awards and Breakthrough Artist at the ARIA Music Awards.
Positive Spin followed in August 2023 and reached No. 17 in Australia. The album also received an Australian Music Prize nomination, while “Heartbreak Baby” was shortlisted for APRA Song of the Year. Ray won Best Pop Work at the 2024 Music Victoria Awards.
The interruption caused by her illness also altered the trajectory of her international career. Ray had moved to London before her diagnosis and was forced to cancel her remaining 2024 touring plans. Her return to music began with “Swimming, Crying” in June 2026, a song that introduced the continuing themes of grief and recovery explored on Heartsong.
The title track therefore provides a clear indication of the album’s central tension. Its musical setting is warm and melodic, while its subject matter confronts mortality, uncertainty and the process of rebuilding a sense of purpose. That combination extends the songwriting approach Ray established earlier in her career while reflecting circumstances that have fundamentally changed her perspective.
Heartsong will be Ray’s first studio album since the health crisis that interrupted her career in 2024. Its October release will add a new chapter to a catalogue that has moved from indie folk through contemporary pop and now towards a more intimate form of songwriting, with the title track providing the first substantial indication of where that progression has led.
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