Q&A: The Colors and Visions of Sarah Kinsley’s New EP “Ascension”, with 1824
COME ON IN, TAKE A SEAT, AND LET’S GET STARTED – as New York’s ethereal Sarah Kinsley may have it. Many may know Kinsley from her viral hit “The King” back in 2021.
Since that overnight success, she’s kept us along for the high-speed journey by continuing the beloved behind-the-scenes TikToks of her self-production process, all while delivering the usual plethora of godly instrumentals and stacked vocals with every release.
Her newest EP “Ascension” proves true to its name. With such a deeply unique sound and her absolute involvement from start to finish, Kinsley produces such a coming-of-age movie-like experience. If you didn’t know Kinsley’s work could be even more raw and vulnerable, yet alive than it already was, this project will have you seeing colors.
Read below for the full conversation with Kinsley on the making of “Ascension” from a virtual press conference hosted by 1824!
1824: What was your earliest memory of playing and/or making music?
KINSLEY: It's really funny, my earlier memories of music are all based in classical music because I had grown up training on the piano and violin when I was like, 9. So my earliest memories are all of being strict and disciplined during lessons and being told to not move as much or to play a bit more accurately. I was told by every single one of [my teachers] growing up that I was a little bit too emotional while playing, which is quite funny, they spoke to my parents about that. That’s definitely my earliest memory of playing music, and I started making and writing music [more seriously] between the ages of 10 and when I was in college.
1824: How has your journey in music inspired this truly unique sound that you’ve found and presented to us?
KINSLEY: Speaking of classical music, I think that’s definitely influenced where I’m at now and that sort of sound I’m trying to curate. It’s been a very solidified part of my life that I can’t seem to get out of, the sort of themes of classical music, the emotion and the charm of using strings and writing melodies that are really hinting at the sort of background that I have. I think that journey through music has really inspired a lot of the music that I make, and alternatively the battle that I've had [breaking] out of those binaries that classical music presents. That was a big thing when I was in high school, just how strict and structured everything is in classical music and I think that's a big part of my identity as well, breaking out of that mold and exploring sounds that are neither here nor there. That’s a big part of who I am as a musician.
1824: On “Ascension” and your other projects, you don’t have any features on any of your songs. Is that Intentional? Is there someone you would like to collaborate with on upcoming projects?
KINSLEY: I don’t know if it’s intentional, or if it’s that I feel like I’m still introducing myself as a person and a musician. I work a lot in isolation and solitude and that’s where I find a lot of growth and meaning. A lot of parts of the process are just with myself, which is why I think I haven’t gotten to that point yet. I think I’m really looking forward to thinking about who to collaborate with. Someone that’s been on my mind a lot is this Canadian artist MorMor, who I’m a really big fan of personally– not even as a musician who wants a collab, just someone who has ears and loves good music. But I’m really stoked to see what he does next.
1824: With your producing process being so unique and intimate, do you ever experience a common writer’s block or pressure to write? What does that look like for you and how do you pull yourself out?
KINSLEY: I definitely get writer’s block, I think people who say they don’t are lying. I feel creativity in spurts of energy, I feel it a lot in waves. I think that writer’s block is actually a really nice sign from the universe to go out and exist in a slightly different way. When I’m writing or trying to write, everything is about breathing in and ingesting and taking things in, and grabbing things that are in front of you, whereas when you have writer’s block, it’s more just about observing or letting things exist around you in life instead of feeling the need to pick at or find things. Things just appear to you and that’s actually a lot more beautiful in a weird way. With writer’s block, there’s definitely a little pressure to write, and I want to keep giving people music I think is good, so I definitely feel that. Sometimes writer’s block is a really good thing because I know that something good will come once this moment passes. It’s nice to just feel it.
1824: You’re very used to being in full involvement in the making of your music. In terms of future collaborations, would you have a preference for which role you’d like to take on then, or would it depend on who you’re working with?
KINSLEY: It definitely depends on who and for what. I think for my own music I envision still having a pretty big hand on what I’m doing, I envision myself still being a co-producer, the bare minimum, but I’m definitely intrigued to understand the process of really writing with another person. So far in my short time being a musician, I’ve really only co-written with one other person for their music, and that was a really joyous process but it was totally different because it wasn't for an emotion that I was trying to express or an experience that I was trying to recreate, it was someone else’s. It was a fun exercise in figuring out how to be the vessel for someone else’s thoughts or feelings. But I couldn’t see myself stepping too far back.
1824: What’s a song that brings you back to earth? It could be your own song or somebody else’s, but just something that you come back to ground yourself.
KINSLEY: It’s really funny, I’ve had this playlist that I’ve been curating for many years now that started out as music I envisioned being in a film, or that I would select for a film, but it’s actually become a playlist that’s very much what you’re talking about of settling and feeling calm. A lot of the music in there goes from Bossa Nova to soft ambient music. There’s this song I would listen to a lot during Covid, actually. I would just lie on the ground and listen to this song and feel really at peace. It’s called [“La Mar” by Beautiful Girls], it’s one of the most calming songs ever, it definitely grounds me.
1824: You mentioned being fascinated by “wonder and weirdness”— can you explain what that means to you through your music?
KINSLEY: I think wonder and weirdness for me is really about the most challenging parts of creating music, like when I'm not really sure where to go or what something is meant to be. I think the thing that draws me in most or makes a song feel really worthy is how much it captivates me with its wonder or its weirdness. If I'm in the production process of trying to find sounds and I'm disappointed by the things I have, it's probably because I don't think they are interesting enough. I think the things that are weird, sounds that independent of a song, might be really bizarre and maybe not even beautiful in a sense, their essence amongst a collective of other things creates this sonic environment that is so captivating. I think that is what really draws me into creating music as a whole, finding those things that are so bizarre. When I was making “Oh No Darling”, or even “Black Horse”, in the background vocals I found this plug-in chain of a delay that I could edit and experiment with. If you change certain filters or certain amounts of time on the delay, you could create this effect of the vocals almost whirring past you. If you listen to it on its own, it would honestly make you wanna vomit, it was so dizzying. But when you put them on a song and layer them with everything, it just created this really weird effect of making voices not static anymore and making so much movement. That kind of weirdness with a decision is so propelling within creativity. I think it just really intrigues me when I'm making very small decisions about music.
1824: Can you tell us about the storyline of “Ascension” and what elements you feel tie the track's lives together?
KINSLEY: I think “Ascension” has become this really funny theme about literally ascending to a place that holds a lot of memory. I think the through line that actually threads through almost all of my music has something to do with time as a thing that I feel and don’t really understand, and making these songs is a way to comprehend the largeness of it. I think each track on ascension deals with time or the illusion of getting older in a really nuanced and different way. [Songs like] “Oh No Darling” are so sarcastic and mean, almost, to myself. There’s a lot of silliness involved. That introduction to the song is this more hilarious and ironic way of saying, “Oh, darling, you’re so stupid, you’re so silly”, and each of them tries to collect time as a measure of [who I am] in relation to this thing. If all these things are changing around me, what does that mean about what I feel or experience? That sort of narrative carries through. [The name of] “Ascension” has a lot of religious and spiritual connotations. The way that I thought about it was amongst the change of time and instability of things, that place that we ascend to or this moment we get to experience is a constant unending place where things are alive, unchanging, and stable. That became a really beautiful, very heavenly narrative to carry throughout the songs.
1824: Can you tell us about your favorite parts of the production process and where you struggled with that more?
KINSLEY: Producing my own music has always been such a fun, silly journey. I feel like I start to go a bit crazy after a while, sitting at my computer just [going] “beep-boop” and moving stuff around, not doing anything else. It can be a mind-boggling process, but also so rewarding, honestly. I feel myself becoming a lot more comfortable. I’ve only been doing it since I started college 4 or 5 years ago. I definitely feel myself becoming stronger and becoming more dependent on my skills and what I know, which is really fun. I definitely struggled this time [with] “Sliver of Time”. I had so many renditions of that song and every time I tried to produce it, it just sounded horrible. I was really annoyed with it for a while. But it eventually molded and shifted into something different, which was a very fun character development for that song.
1824: What advice would you give to budding female artists?
KINSLEY: I think my advice to anyone who’s young and figuring things out would be just to experience and listen, but also to really trust your gut. You know when you have something good and that feeling is inescapable, I would say to listen to that.
1824: Were there any other art forms that inspired you during the making of “Ascension”?
KINSLEY: Definitely. I think it’s a very visual experience, for sure. When we were thinking about the album cover and the colors of this EP, we spent a lot of time talking about light and structures; I can’t remember what they’re called, but these light fixtures of these different blues and a lot of different hues of light. I think lights and blueness in different films have really inspired a lot of aspects of the EP, some poetry I was reading played into it as well.
1824: How do you pick which songs to perform when you’re on tour?
KINSLEY: Usually we’ll list all the songs out and try to bring a narrative onto the tour and bring people through a process. We’ll play “Karma” first, and the first line of that is “Come on in, take a seat, let’s get started.” It always feels like a really funny, nice little thing to start a show with. It’s been fun this time around to have so much music that we have to start picking and choosing which ones to play. It’s definitely [about] seeing which ones fit into the narrative most and how to carry a lot of energy throughout the performance.
1824: How did self-producing the EP help you grow not just as an artist, but as a person?
KINSLEY: There’s a lot of internal dialog that happens during self-production, just because any decision that I might come across, that would usually happen through talking to someone, just happens in the head. It’s a lot of trying to understand and find the confidence to go down a certain route, and to have the self-awareness to know when something isn’t working. I think it’s definitely changed a lot about how I think about music and myself as a whole. There are a lot of self-doubts that I think can happen when self-producing, because you never really know what feels good, you’re not relying on a room of people to nod in agreement, to move or sway– it’s “What do I feel?”. It’s very therapeutic in the sense that I have to really listen to what feels good, I need to take time away from the thing and have an ear-cleanse before going back to it. It’s definitely made me a lot more confident in my decisions and able to listen to self-doubt without it letting it be very harmful.
1824: In what ways do you create music that feels uniquely you?
KINSLEY: I feel like the associations of piano and strings and very distinct intros have started to become a thing, which I’m very, very happy about.
1824: What does feeling or being alive mean to you? In what ways do you use that as an inspiration when you create music?
KINSLEY: All of the things that I described in [“The King”] were how I felt alive. The meaning of the song was very tethered to those specific instances, so when I was talking about “dancing in the rain, our feet on the pavement,” all of these things that are lyrically specific, I was actually doing these things; going to the beach, building sandcastles, being very childish and allowing myself to do those things [that] I stayed up doing all of those things before I turned 20 and written that song. That was what being alive felt like to me, being very free and giving myself a lot of permission to be childish and just silly. I think that has carried into “Ascension” a lot too, just the idea of allowing oneself to be kind of stupid and a bit of a goof.
1824: How did it feel getting to perform at Governer’s Ball? How did you feel afterward?
KINSLEY: It was great. I wasn’t sure what to expect because we had just come off of a really strong run of the tour, with venues being packed with people who really knew the lyrics well. Festivals are just interesting because it’s like a different crowd. I was just really stoked beforehand, it’s a really big deal. I was just excited to play on a bigger stage and feel it. It was a really good time.
1824: If you had to pick a lyric of yours, either off of “Ascension” or any of your other work to describe how you’re feeling about life right now, what would it be?
KINSLEY: Definitely something either from “Oh No Darling” or “Black Horse” is how I’m feeling recently. The “Oh No Darling” chorus has this line that’s like, “There she goes running with her head for the sake of living on the edge,” or “Black Horse” has that line, “Are we still too young?” I’m definitely a lot of that recently off the back of the EP coming out and feeling generally very wild and very excited, just very liberated by the music being out.
1824: How does something like your contact microphone amplify your creative flow?
KINSLEY: It’s really interesting, I think the mic itself is not doing much besides turning my voice into more of an instrument. Instead of thinking about lyrics, it makes me focus my mind a lot more on the melodic content of what I’m making. I’ll sit and plug that mic into a guitar amp and fiddle with settings there and it becomes a bit more like an instrument. It’s definitely amplified the creative process because it just turns the thoughts and expression into melody purely. That’s a nice place to start, as opposed to being more daunted by needing to create a full, big [song]. It’s been very fun to post about and share, for sure.
1824: What 3 words would you use to describe “Ascension”?
KINSLEY: Oh my God. Okay, I’d definitely say “diamond”, that’s a big symbol we’ve used for this EP, that has a lot of meaning for me in regards to light and shape. The shape of them was the first thing that I drew and came to me when we were making the EP. I’d say “lucid”, I had a lot of lucid dreams during the creation of the EP. Then I’d say “blue” because the album is very blue to me as a piece of music.
1824: In honor of Pride Month, which colors of the rainbow would you assign each song off your EP?
KINSLEY: Oh my God, when I was in high school, I really wished I had synesthesia! “Oh No Darling” to me is very much blue to me. “Lovegod” is very pink and very purple. “Black Horse” is very red, easily. “Ascension” is maybe more yellow. I would give “Sliver of Time” a nice purplish blue.
1824: What’s a moment on the record you're the proudest of, lyrically or sonically?
KINSLEY: I’m proudest of this moment in “Black Horse” because I was recording background vocals over and over again [for the line] “I’m still too young” in the closet of my apartment. It was actually really difficult to make this time. Usually stacking vocals is a relatively easy thing in the process, but I have really thin walls in my apartment, and my neighbor was so, so annoyed because I kept screaming to get all the different textures. I wasn’t sure how it was gonna come together. That is a moment I’m the proudest of because there’s so much energy in those vocals and I love the way the pre-chorus was built. I’m really proud of a lot of those layers. The same thing happened with “Oh No Darling”, it was really difficult to position [the background vocals] in the right place. For me, background vocals are just as important as the main stuff, so figuring out where to spatially present all of those was a really tough challenge, but I love those moments in the songs.
1824: As an artist based in New York City, how big of a role does location play in your songwriting process?
KINSLEY: I think it’s a huge, huge element. I’m a big believer that people are consequences of culture and place. There are places around the city where I go to people-watch or to write that without a doubt play a part in who I am and the music that I’m writing and feeling.
1824: What else can fans expect from you musically for the rest of 2023?
KINSLEY: Oh, God, I don’t know. I think you can definitely expect me to disappear for a little bit and to write, and be one with the earth for a little bit. And hopefully some more music soon, we’ll see!
1824: Your music is often compared to the soundtrack of a coming-of-age movie, are there any other themes you’re excited to explore in your music?
KINSLEY: The coming-of-age soundtrack is not far off by any means. I’ve been excited to write a bit more ambiguously about love in my music. I definitely hint at love and relationships—maybe not hinting, “The Giver” was not really subtle— but hinting more at nice parts of love, that’s something I’m really intrigued to write about. I feel like I’m always a year or two behind in my writing; I’m always recollecting from the past and I’m just starting to get to a point of feeling really safe and very comfortable in love and that hasn’t caught up to my music writing yet, but I’m really excited to explore those kinds of themes.
1824: When you’re creating your music, what do you envision as the ideal setting for your fans to listen to it in?
KINSLEY: Definitely a live performance is the most ideal, just because there's so much connection and trust and reciprocation that happens during the shows. That’s my favorite, personally. I’ve gotten a lot of notes about listening in the car and driving with all the windows down, and also the ones of being in a room alone with all of the lights off, which is less favorable because I don’t want to wish that on people! But I know that it happens, and it can be a really ideal place to listen to music with no interruption.
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