Sarah Kinsley goes on a journey in the making of her upcoming debut album, Escaper, due for Sept. 6. She disappears into musical instruments and starts painting a fictional world with nourishing soundscapes, luscious strings and somber voice. With Escaper, she creates a world for herself to sink into to shield her from the storm in the real world. Escaper exists as a safe place, an island that’s beautiful and forever green, where you can lie down and breathe and scream and be yourself. There’s no limit or restraint in this world. It’s how you make it to be. “Last Time We Never Meet Again” immediately pulls you into this imaginary green land with pulsating strings that feel like soft grass that’s full of life. Kingsley’s music is like soul food that enriches and energizes you.
”Realms” is as immersive and epic as a quiet song can be. It feels like the vibe contained in Harry Styles retro 80s vibe. There’s a deep escapism and sadness underneath the spectacular dance that keeps going past midnight. “Realms” is a royal dance. It’s luxurious and fancy and overwhelming. With clashing drums and loud beats, it’s a song that devours you into its massive world-building, but at the same time, the darker undertone starts to come out. You can hear it. There’s regret. There’s depression. There’s this massive emptiness that an escape cannot fill up, as if gravity, remind you that something’s missing.
”Starling” has been a fan-favorite ever since Kinsley released the song. Starting a richly emotive ballad, her voice is less abstract and breathy. Instead, she’s present in her feelings, even though it means facing the thick sadness. There’s beauty in sadness and returning to the reality. While it might not be perfect, it’s what we make it out to be.
”Starling” feels like a chocolate latte, rich and warm, bitter and sweet. “Starling” also feels like hugging your loved one while watching the sunset at the beach — it’s unbelievably beautiful in the moment to witness the end of something, knowing that there’ll be a period of healing and rest before the new beginning. “Starling” gives you that breathable heaviness that’s exactly what your soul needs.
Written by Katrina Yang
Press Q&A with Sarah Kinsley
Q: Can you share some interesting stories from your recording of Escaper?
Sarah Kinsley: It was my first experience working with another producer. There’s a song called “Nights” on the album. There’s a very drastic tempo change that begins with a piano ballad and works into a very intense drum filled song. It took us several variations to figure it out. We spent so many days going back and forth with the song, trying out different instrument. At one point, I was playing the piano and then I was playing those singing glass bowls and then playing strings on it. That was the most exciting and challenging part of the whole process.
Q: What are some particular challenging experiences recording “Starling”?
Sarah Kinsley: Honestly, no. I felt like I knew straight away what I wanted the song to sound like. I feel like sometimes when you imagine things, the sonic landscape either defined or kind of blurry. I knew I wanted it to be a very beautiful little waltz, then sweet and just a very tender song. It has a middle ring attached to the electrical wire that adjusts the sound, so it glides the note. It took many tries to play it. I have been researching instruments for years, so that’s kind of a privilege.
Q: What has writing and producing this album taught you about yourself?
Sarah Kinsley: There’s too much to say. I think the huge part of this album is about the process of the escape and what it is. I wrote the majority of the album while I was dealing with different forms of grief and loss from friendship and love and family. I think a huge theme of this album is who do you become to escape, where do you go when you don’t want to exist in the real world anymore. The first half of this album is about that sort of imagined world, the place we go. I learned a lot about myself as a person that exists outside of my music and what I require from music and art to keep going. I learned about the vulnerable and darker side of the process of what looks like.
Q: What is the biggest message you want people to get out of this album from this release?
Sarah Kinsley: I Sometimes I don’t know the answer to this question because I don’t want to tell people what to think when they listen to music. Individual interpretation is the greatest gift of music and the fact that so many people can listen to songs and they can communicate different stories and different threads of humanity and what think about and do. My biggest revelation with this album is escape is necessary, a need for survival, but at the end of the day, there’s still something beautiful about choosing to engage with the world even with flaws. This character I’m writing through this record kind of realize that eventually love is still worthy. Humanity still worthy of our attention even with darkness. That’s the sort of decision and final place I come to. You’re worthy of love and love is worthy of you.
Q: In your latest single, “Starling,” you described it as a love letter to your friend. How is your relationship with your friend?
Sarah Kinsley: As a young woman, I feel like romantic obsession was the most that deserves my attention and is something that I should think about all the time, and therefore is something I should write about. A lot of my early music has very little to do with friendship and platonic love and just everything romantically obsessed with people. It makes you feel like nothing, which is good and also very bad. Because this album is about trying to accept love and understand it, and a huge part of that is platonic love is one of the most sustaining things in my life. I just had a night with two of my closest friends. One of whom I’ve known for years. We were just having dinner and talking, and we had a realization amongst the three of us. We’re going to know each other for such a long time. When you make such good friends, it almost feels luckier than love. I just wanted to write that song, “Starling” to capture this feeling.
Q: Do you have any fun fan stories?
Sarah Kinsley: One of the first shows I ever played, we did a tour across the US. This is the very beginning of my career, I was touring for the first time. I was really nervous and I was having trouble keeping up my voice touring. I was playing at this show in Chicago. It was outside the venue, it was really cold, and I decided to not wear shoes for some reason. I was barefoot outside after the show ended. This girl was really clever. She somehow knew we were gonna be there, and she just like grabbed my arm (not in a violent way) and said, “I just need to show you something.” She pulled up her sleeve, and there’s the name of my song, “I’m not a mountain” tattooed on her arm. I haven’t met anyone yet to make the choice to tattoo themselves with phrases I’ve written. We had a sweet moment. I just hugged her, and I felt really overwhelming and super grateful for that moment.
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