Los Angeles, CA · trance · vocal-electronic

Haliene

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Vocalist and songwriter behind a great many trance and melodic bass records, now fronting her own — the genre's most recognizable voice stepping into the spotlight.

Haliene was born Kelly Melissa Sweet in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, in 1988, raised by a pianist father and an artist mother who filled the house with jazz standards. She gave her first public performance at four, at the Cape Cod Conservatory. After her parents divorced, she and her mother moved to Kanab, Utah, where she trained with a vocal coach and sang at state fairs and community theatres.

As a teenager she studied musical theatre at Interlochen and, after her demo reached the Los Angeles Lakers, sang the national anthem for the team three times. In 2006 she opened for Paul Simon on tour, and in 2007 released her debut album, We Are One, under the name Kelly Sweet, becoming the highest-charting indie-label artist on adult contemporary radio that year.

Her mother died in December 2011 and her father six months later, while she was working on her second album, Ashes of My Paradise, released in 2012, followed by the EP Sirens in 2013. In 2015 she adopted the name Haliene, beginning the run of dance-music collaborations that would define her career.

As Haliene she has lent vocals and songwriting to producers across trance, progressive house and melodic bass, including Armin van Buuren, Seven Lions, ATB, Ferry Corsten, Aly & Fila and Gareth Emery, and has written songs performed by other vocalists in the same scene. Her song with Emery and Standerwick, "Saving Light," won A State of Trance's Tune of the Year award.

More recently she has released material under her own name, retaining the widescreen, melodic style of the records that made her recognisable while placing her writing at the centre rather than as a guest credit. Her solo work sits between vocal trance and electropop, and she performs it as a fronted live show.

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trancevocal-electronic