In the music industry, there are resonating figures that have made their mark, many being what the majority of us students listen to today. Whether it was because of the rhythm they displayed, the art they stained into lyricism, or even just the mastery of the notes they could strike, they’ve all shown what being loud means in a world of music. But what about those soft, quiet whispers, the ones you can’t hear unless you open yourself to change? One of these passionate lulls comes from Sarah Kinsley, a Chinese-American artist from New York that invites souls to dive into a sense of soft fragility.
Since she was a child, she has lived in music, shaping her world around it. Through her songs, she explores what it feels like to be both capable and hopeless. Rooted in New York, her perspective carries the weight of place and identity. (4.) She does this to capture why it feels so isolating yet profound to exist in a vast and silent universe.
Roots to Resonance
Sarah Kinsley was a child of rhythm growing up in California. (4.) She gravitated toward classical music in her younger years, playing piano and violin in youth orchestras. (3.) Her world grew even bigger when she moved to Singapore, where her slight interest in pop expanded after discovering artists such as Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran. (4.) Music was the honest life she lived until attending Columbia University at eighteen, where her views of music began to shift into what she knows today. (5.)
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During this transition, she adopted her own take on pop that blended classical music into it. (5.) She also drew from sub-genres like alt-pop, indie pop, and art pop. (3.) This mix of classical and pop carried her identity while she dove into complex concepts through her songs. (2.) Her lyrics are rooted in personal experiences of young adulthood, blending music into her reality.
Kinsley began to create music during quarantine, releasing her first EP The Fall in April of 2020. (4.) However, it wasn’t until she promoted her music on TikTok that her second EP The King erupted in 2021. (4.) From then on, she released an EP every year until her debut album in 2024, Escaper. (2.)
The Faith We Place in Love
Every song she crafts reflects self-discovery and reliance on oneself or others. One of her early songs, I’m Not a Mountain, captures this perfectly, diving into the balance between strength and fragility. Kinsley admits the limits of her endurance in the song, as well as her willingness to crumble. Her 2022 track Lucky Drive allows this concept to breathe. It explores the tension of loving when it feels wrong, and breaking that pattern to rewrite what love means. A year later, Kinsley returned to this theme with Lovegod, debuting on her 2023 EP Ascension. Lovegod is a confession to a phantom lover, a desperate act of faith in love as a refuge. The song poses the question: What if wanting love is all we’ve got? (1.)
Sarah Kinsley has fused herself into the music she creates, crafting a sound that feels translucent and prismatic. I highly recommend listening to her work, as she continues to shape oceans of moods within her past, current, and future music!
Resources:
(1.) Sarah Kinsley
(2.) In conversation with Sarah Kinsley | WUNC
(3.) Sarah Kinsley is Alive With the Sound of Music
(4.) Escaping Into the Ethereal World of Singer-Songwriter Sarah Kinsley – RepresentASIAN Project
