For nearly a decade, The Burney Sisters have been making music side by side.
What started with singing harmonies in the car and performing locally as kids has grown into years of touring, songwriting, and building a sound together. But their latest release, “Barely Mine,” feels like the beginning of something different.
The sisters have spent most of their career rooted in folk and Americana, but lately the music they listen to offstage has started making its way into the studio too. After years of keeping those influences mostly separate, The Burney Sisters are finally letting more of their love for indie, ’70s textures, and ’90s alternative music shape what comes next.
“For most of our career we have stayed in the more americana/folk leaning realm, but have always enjoyed 70s/90s or indie styles of music in our daily playlists,” The Burney Sisters tell Everyday Jams. “This is really the first year that we're incorporating those influences into our music and experimenting with more sounds in the studio.”
They point to artists ranging from Clairo and Tiny Habits to Radiohead, Phoebe Bridgers, and Stevie Wonder as references that have entered the conversation while working on this next chapter.
“Barely Mine” is where listeners get to hear some of that shift first.
“Barely Mine” Lives Somewhere Between Leaving and Staying
At the center of “Barely Mine” is a relationship that has reached an uncomfortable kind of quiet.
The fighting has stopped, but not because everything has been fixed. Instead, two people have become emotionally disconnected while still struggling with the idea of actually letting each other go.
The Burney Sisters knew what the song was about almost immediately.
“Honestly we knew from the first line of the song what we wanted it to be about,” they say. “Something about those lyrics being so confessional helped the story unravel quickly for all of us.”
That contradiction runs through the entire track: knowing something is no longer working while still feeling terrified of losing it.
The song also looks beyond the relationship itself and at the pressure that can come from everyone around it. Sometimes staying together becomes less about what two people actually want and more about what they feel they are supposed to want.
“We've seen that the pressure of society can outweigh the decision of acting on your actual feelings in a situation,” The Burney Sisters explain, “and wanted to bring that into this song.”
It gives “Barely Mine” an emotional gray area that feels honest. There is resentment there, but also history. Distance, but still attachment.
“Letting go is especially harder when there's history behind the relationship,” they say. “We feel like that's an experience that a lot of people can relate to.”
Ruston Kelly
One of the most unexpected parts of this new era started with a message.
The Burney Sisters had made it a goal this year to build more genuine relationships within music and push themselves creatively. So they reached out to Ruston Kelly.
They did not necessarily expect it to lead anywhere.
“Connecting with Ruston was HUGE for us and it honestly didn't feel real at first when we saw that he responded to our message and wanted to write with us,” they say.
But the connection clicked quickly.
The sisters describe Ruston as someone who immediately understood the story they were trying to tell, and after their first writing session went so well, they decided to write together again. Ruston brought his friend and collaborator Jarrad K into the next session, and that group ultimately wrote “Barely Mine” together before making a demo in Jarrad’s studio that same night.
For The Burney Sisters, that outside perspective is exactly what makes collaboration exciting.
“The reason we love co-writes so much is because of the extra perspective gained that we may not have had on our own,” they explain.
It is a lesson that seems to have carried into the way they write more broadly.
They admit that co-writing used to come with a lot more pressure. Now, the goal is simply to get ideas into the room and see what happens.
“The biggest thing we've learned so far is that spitting out dumb ideas is better than no ideas,” they say. “Sometimes that ‘dumb’ idea can spark someone else's inspiration and turn into the best lyric of the song.”
That willingness to loosen up feels important for a band entering a period of experimentation.
The Harmonies Stay, Even as Everything Else Changes
The Burney Sisters may be stepping into a different sonic world, but there is one thing they have no interest in leaving behind.
Harmony has been at the center of their music since childhood.
Even as the production gets fuller and the influences expand, the sisters still see their voices together as the thread connecting every version of the band.
“We still have a thumbprint that stays apparent throughout all of our music because at the core, our harmony is what drives,” they say. “We may go through changes in our styles but that's one part of us that will never change.”
On “Barely Mine,” those harmonies are not simply decoration. The Burney Sisters say they adjust their arrangements depending on the emotional weight of a song, treating the voices almost like another part of the storytelling.
“Since we were kids we've always been arrangers and instrumentalists first,” they explain, “and we love to incorporate that part of us into every song we write.”
That foundation gives them room to stretch elsewhere.
Their last EP leaned more stripped-back and highlighted the folk side of their sound. This time, they wanted to build something bigger around it rather than abandon it completely.
“This time around we wanted to find a sound that bridges the gap between our love for folk, and our love for indie music,” they say.
The approach in the studio has changed too. Instead of limiting ideas early, The Burney Sisters are allowing themselves to pile them on and decide what stays later.
“It’s better to have too many ideas to work with and be able to strip it back than not enough to play around with.”
A New Chapter
“Barely Mine” is ultimately less about The Burney Sisters reinventing themselves than giving themselves permission to become more expansive.
They have already spent years performing, touring, arranging, and growing up through music together. Now the question seems to be how far they can stretch that foundation without losing the chemistry that made the project theirs in the first place.
So far, they do not seem particularly worried about that.
The harmonies are still there. The storytelling is still there. What is changing is the willingness to take more creative swings around them.
And if “Barely Mine” is someone’s introduction to The Burney Sisters, they hope it signals exactly how seriously they are taking what comes next.
“We want ‘Barely Mine’ to reflect the level of creativity and effort we plan on staying consistent with in our future projects for years to come,” they say. “It's always been important to us to be extremely hands on in every aspect of our craft.”
For a duo nearing a decade of making music together, that feels like a pretty good place to begin again.
“Barely Mine” is out now. The Burney Sisters are currently working toward their next album and continuing to bring this new era to the stage.
