Discussing currents of time, honesty, and emotion in Sarah Kinsley’s newest upcoming EP
We were told that “Fleeting” was a project written in the backseats of cab cars in New York City — from inspiration only found finally seated after a long night out, listening to the muted cacophony of car horns and street-side conversations through the sweating windowpane. To us, it really feels like that; the soundscape feels rich and sonically complex, electrified by strings and synths that wander, wide-eyed, around a confident percussion line. Kinsley’s vocals are crisp and cut through the noise, like a train of thought might over the chaos of your late-night ride home.
In the project, Kinsley skillfully orchestrates an array of differing textures and sounds: fluttering acoustics, unfussy drums, and a cool breath of layered vocals. By balancing maximalism and melody, she aims to reflect whirlwinding themes of transience in her own life. As a 25-year-old singer/songwriter from New York City, she draws a plethora of inspiration from the constant pattering of her own daily activity.
“Living in a city, it’s a huge privilege to be surrounded by so many people and things,” she said. “...to be constantly inundated with newness.”
She emulates this in her maximalist production style by pulling together handfuls of different instruments at once. The idea is inspired by record producer Phil Spector’s the “Wall of Sound” technique, in which many instrumentals and vocals are deliberately stacked to design a larger, all-consuming sound.
This is the case at multiple points in the EP, when a waterfall of instruments— pirouetting guitars and lyrics that wail— build upon each other breathlessly. It’s a gorgeous cataclysm of a composition and it overwhelms the ear just right. It functions to ‘drown’ the listener in sound, but also to reflect a specific storm the singer battles with time at this point in her life.
“I have an ever-changing, ever-growing fear of time passing, and death and loss,” said Kinsley. “It really permeates everything I write about.”
With “Fleeting”, she laments never having enough time, no matter how much she tries to run from the ticking clock. Capturing that kind of chase in sound wasn’t an easy thing to do, though. The time spent creating “Fleeting” was the longest she had actually ever spent writing, producing, and waiting for music, just so she could get it right.
“I felt so bad for my collaborator Jake,” she joked. “When we mixed [“Lonely Touch”], we packed so much into that song. I told him, ‘Don’t even think about taking anything out,’ and I was really stern about [that] one.”
The intention was also to be as honest as possible. As an artist that admitted once to hiding behind poetic ambiguities as a defense mechanism, Kinsley wanted to open up more in the “Fleeting” writing process.
“...this definitely feels like a new level of understanding for myself,” she said. “It’s a level of vulnerability that I’m really not used to but I’m enjoying a lot, because it’s forcing me to come to terms with things that are hard to say in conversation but easier to say with songwriting.”
That sort of vulnerability came with a lot of unlearning in the songwriting process. As a musician with training from Columbia University and a massive classical background, much of her early musical understanding came with a gridlock of rules and parameters. To write honestly and freely, Kinsley described having to lean into intuition in a way that felt foreign, often holding it against her intrusive thoughts to determine what felt the best in the end. As a result, the writing process was long but rewarding, and her favorite part of the EP’s creation.
What she brings us now with the project is a truthful capture of chaos, brevity, and swells of emotion. With “Fleeting”, Sarah Kinsley offers a space to be ruminative and asks her listeners to step into it—to think and feel alongside her through the music.
“I don’t want to prescribe a specific experience. If people find relief, that’s really beautiful. If people feel a specific emotion like sadness or anger, I’m also very okay with that,” she said.
“I just hope people feel anything.”
Sarah Kinsley’s EP “Fleeting” will be out on all streaming platforms Feb. 13, 2026. To listen to released tracks “Fleeting and “Lonely Touch” or to find out more about Kinsley, visit sarahkinsleymusic.com.
