In life, rarely do we recognise the good that we have while we still have it. The occasional occurrences when we do, however, can feel like pure magic; there’s an out-of-body euphoria that comes with experiencing a moment, and, in real-time, realising how badly you’ll miss it. It’s those liminal episodes that Sarah Kinsley chronicles on her new EP Fleeting. “The thing that I just keep coming back to in my life is that everything is impermanent,” the 25-year-old artist tells me over a video call, logging on from her bedroom in New York. “I’m grateful that it is, in a way – even though it’s so sad and melodramatic and ridiculous, it’s also really romantic and true.” 

Melodrama and romance are themes frequently explored by Kinsley, who, since releasing her debut EP The Fall in 2020, has cultivated a devoted fan base. Her musical journey began with a childhood spent immersed in classical music, playing the piano and viola in various orchestras. It was only after moving from Connecticut to New York, where she studied music theory at Columbia University, that she fell in love with indie and pop music, absorbing the genres via house shows on campus and beyond. Both halves of Kinsley’s origin story show up in equal measure in her sound, which somehow blends the grandeur of symphonic music with the intimate haziness of bedroom pop.

Kinsley’s lyricism has also won over listeners, especially those with a penchant for yearning. On Fleeting, which she worked on after an intense breakup, she documents what it feels like to be completely enamoured with someone, and the “mania” that that sort of infatuation can bring. “I was writing really clearly about things that I was going through and not being ambiguous, but just outright saying, ‘This is what this desire makes me feel,’” she says. That vulnerability appears in tracks like “Truth of Pursuit”, on which Kinsley acknowledges the familiar downsides of an all-consuming crush: “Turned my life upside down for a face. Destroy my entire world for the chase.”

When reflecting on the EP’s creation, Kinsley compares poring over her old music to going through old journal entries, in that it can be difficult to face past versions of herself. Still, she credits that practice to the construction of Fleeting, which came together through herself and her collaborator Jake Aaaron returning to old songs and pushing them to their limits. On the track “Lonely Touch”, for example, which was loosely inspired by Luca Guadagnino’s 2024 film Queer, the pair took that challenge to heart, pushing the literal noise limit and playing at the maximum level that one can use to fill up a wall of sound. “I feel like we were trying to get to this frontier, this bursting thing of, ‘How far can we go with this and get as close as possible to this idea that only exists in our heads?’” says Kinsley. “It’s the first work I feel I've made where I'm just like, this really does speak for me, and I don’t feel the need to clarify.”

Though Kinsley’s music may have taken off via the internet, it’s clear that her work has a lasting quality that goes beyond temporary virality. To mark Fleeting’s release, we asked the artist to break down her online favourites.

FAVOURITE YOUTUBE

Sarah Kinsley: Recently, I was deeply obsessed with this woman. She’s British, and she almost philosophises on YouTube. Her name is Pearl. I don’t know how I found her. I think I was really going through stuff over the summer, but she makes these videos about different topics, whether it’s about love or about independence or about isolation. She just talks for 25 minutes in her room somewhere in England, and I was obsessed with her. I would watch her weekly. She’s one of those people who I feel like could genuinely lead a cult, and people would totally understand because she’s forthright in the way she talks, and she’s very elegant. Also, if you watch her stuff, you just believe everything she says. She gave me so many revelations over the last year. I don’t listen to her that much anymore because I think I'm in a better place. But I did love her channel, and I still do.

FAVOURITE MEME

Sarah Kinsley: I love those memes that are like, ‘What the world would look like if….’ and it’s utopia, like buildings and trees and stuff. I find those so funny. I also love that TikTok has images and comments. Now that is one of my favourite new additions. I feel like I respond to people’s comments on my videos now more because I just get excited to see the photos. In the same vein, the astral projection body through the universe meme. If people say that posting a song clip is like the highest compliment for me, that’s like the highest compliment for me. That’s one of my favourite things ever.

FAVOURITE INTERNET RABBIT HOLE

Sarah Kinsley: I’m just obsessed with people talking about gear, both on Instagram and TikTok. There are rabbit holes where you can watch people toy with really strange tape gear or really weird analogue stuff, and people get super granular. I was watching this girl for a while who built an instrument that would play light, so she would pull her curtain open. And she made this whole code for it, and I was like, “Oh, I really wanna try to see if I can make this”. But I was really obsessed with that for a while, because it was just crazy.

FAVOURITE PIECE OF HARDWARE

Sarah Kinsley: I’ve been playing a lot on this new synth called a Moog Matriarch. It’s funny because I feel like sometimes I would have these stereotypes, specifically about sweet older men who get obsessed with synths. I don’t know, it’s the same thing as when people are just obsessed with wine, or obsessed with this very specific hobby that is a little too expensive and ridiculous, but I think I’m becoming one of those old men. I bought this Moog matriarch and it’s my favourite instrument right now. That or my contact mic, which I bring everywhere with me and is an awesome piece of gear.