Our Story
Our story and work as a duo is entwined with our lifestyle as husband and wife. Music was the catalyst of our romance and is a huge part of everything we do together and individually. As Sonic Enchantment we create ethereal and shamanic soul...a new direction for us both, coming from pop, rock and funk backgrounds.
Stu was born in York, England and has had mainstream success playing bass in 90's Britpop band The Seahorses and live shows with the Happy Mondays and St Ettienne, continuing to play with a plethora of bands and artists to the present day. As an independent solo artist, Jilly Riley, born in Wakefield, England, I've self-released albums, E.P's, singles, written, performed and produced by myself. I had a brief taste of the mainstream music industry during my time on The Voice UK in 2018. Rock and roll, pop stars, fame....a rollercoaster ride that's not always easy and certainly gets harder as you age!
Stu and I became lovers in 2023 after meeting at one of his shows with The Mothers. We realised very quickly we had a huge musical connection! I'd stopped performing after struggling with a breakdown during lockdown, but continued recording and releasing from home while pursuing a new project that would become part of my own therapy, while offering peace and positivity to others. I'd been collecting world instruments for years, knowing that one day I'd put them all to good use. Tongue drums, gongs, crystal and Himalayan singing bowls and wind chimes. I'd experiment with them and my voice, discovering I could sing in other ways beside soul. I began to feel a calling to offer this new energy to others for relaxation and rejuvenation, like a sound therapy session but with something extra that would allow for a fully encompassing experience....headsets. The entire performance was to be delivered by headset during a session I'd named Sonic Spa. The only thing missing was confidence! I struggled so much with anxiety I couldn't bring myself to actually go out and share my offering.....until meeting Stu.
We love to jam together, plugging in, mic-ing up all sorts of instruments, using effects pedals....experimenting. It was during a psychedelic jam one night that Stu played bass through my Strymon Big Sky pedal, an epic reverberation unit, making new sounds, playing beautiful melodies outside his awesome funk/rock/prog skillset. That was it. He began playing along with my relaxation pieces in this new way, adding so much warm ambience and feel. Sonic Spa became our project together. His love and support was what I needed to be able to perform again. We started our live sessions, bringing relaxation to venues throughout Yorkshire beginning in summer 2024 and still do this currently.
Members of our community asked for recorded music right from the get go...so we set to work, recording our debut meditation album Oceanic Journey, based on one of the pieces we perform at our Sonic Spa sessions. We've since recorded a full Sonic Spa session too.
We started running an Instagram channel in March 2025 that we call Sonic Enchantment, our duo name. We wanted to offer short form enchanting music, each piece as an offering, connected to our personal way of life. Paganism has been a prominent part of my life since I was at school and is something Stu and I now explore together. It's been an important tool in our expansion as individuals and as a couple. Our combined history of rock and roll, ADHD, trauma and anxiety had caused imbalance for us both. When we met we'd both arrived at a point of wanting to grow and find balance, each of us already in therapy and looking for other ways to find the peace we needed. We found this in each other. We've explored the divine masculine and feminine together, ancient philosophy and deity work, regularly working with the cycles of nature, the moon and sun and practice visualisation and manifestation. Sonic Enchantment is an exciting way for us to share some of this work musically while offering inspiration to others also on a similar spiritual path. We're now recording and releasing singles based on what our tribe enjoyed the most from our instagram channel….a fusion of our roots in soul, pop, funk and rock and the initial enchanting pieces we offered there. We call this New Age soul and have lots to share!