New York-based multihypenate Sarah Kinsley side-steps expectation with her intimate yet dynamic new EP, “Fleeting”. She talks growing out her sound and finding beauty in mundanity.

“Fleeting” feels an apropos name for Sarah Kinsley’s new EP. There’s plenty of gorgeous moments – whether in the emotional intricacy of her songwriting, the shimmering beauty of the sonic backdrops, or the devouring softness of her vocals. Physically, they pass. They come, they go. But they are subconsciously etched into the listener’s soul. These songs stick with you.

Alt pop’s umbrella stretches to give shade to endless contemporary artists. But few navigate the wide-spanning label better than Kinsley. From orchestral origins – a personal lineage playfully vivid on 2024’s debut full-length, Escaper – the 25-year-old has developed into a masterful lyricist, songsmith and producer, escaping sonic stereotypes, impressively focused and emotionally articulate as a songwriter. 

This new EP, shared via Verve Forecast/Fontana, comes in the aftermath of her inaugural record but makes no less impact; lit from the embers of a hectic breakthrough year rife with touring, moving from a full-length to a shorter burst of artistry wasn’t planned. “It just happened,” she tells Wonderland. An instinctive creation that immerses, the five cuts leave an imprint. Oh, and there’s a Paris Paloma feature, how about that?

Before she heads off on a 30-date headline tour across North America and the UK/Ireland (kicking off in Seattle on 25^th March and climaxing at KOKO in London on 28^th May), Kinsley stops by HQ to talk fleeting feelings, bursts of happiness, and the deep-seated significance of music.  

Listen to the EP…

Read the exclusive interview…

Firstly, a big one – why do you make music? 

Music is the closest I get to the truth of what I am and what I believe. It’s my language and my arms and my eyes. When I perform my older music, it feels like a form of time travel. Talking to myself from the past into the future or from the future through the past to the present self. I’m free from my body, from time, from everything.

What’s your favourite thing about NYC right now?

The single-file footpaths everyone seems to be following in the snow. Walking in the steps of everyone before you. It’s really cute. 

What’s a mundane thing you find beauty in?

There’s this little piece of loose metal in my shower, just kind of dangling near the shower head. It’s pretty annoying most of the time because it taps like ding ding ding again and again throughout the day. But sometimes I’ll play music at home, and the metal tapping will line up with the rhythm of a song. Like a metronome or a little clock bouncing along to it. And it’s like my house is listening too. 

At what point in your life does this new EP find you?

This new EP was born out of a pretty chaotic, intense year, but its arrival into the world has found me at a point of peace, surprisingly. These five songs carried me through the first half of being 25. It’s found me at the first moment after a long period of feeling lost and unclear. I’m falling back in love with my life. Letting it be romantic and whimsical and stupid. I’m succumbing to sweetness more and more each day. 

Why is it called “Fleeting”?

Every song indulges in a fleeting feeling – something overwhelming and powerful worth trying to get inside of. I feel like I spent this past year desperate for any kind of clarity about my life. The months were spent chasing after fleeting relationships, fleeting experiences. I came to that lesson time and time again that I was trying to shove light into a jar or capture something not meant to last forever. In the end, everything is fleeting. And how wonderful that it is. Thank god it all is. 
 
How is “Fleeting” a personal and artistic growth from your debut album, Escaper? Why did you decide to follow up an LP with a shorter project?

It wasn’t an intentional choice for me to create an EP after my debut album in 2024. It just happened. I hear the differences between myself from Escaper and my present self now so clearly. I sound younger on Escaper, timid somehow. I feel more vulnerable these days. Unafraid. I say exactly what I feel, without metaphor, without the dance of sugar coating or analogy. I just feel, and I write exactly what I feel: moments of mania and surges of excitement and pain and heartbreak. I’m indulging in the feeling before it disappears. I don’t know how to explain it, but everything I think and feel just feels undeniable these days. I’m no longer resisting whatever the thing is meant to be.

While Escaper leans on your orchestral background, this new work presents a synth pop change of pace. What was the thought behind that? 

It’s definitely a consequence of my taste these days. I fell heavily into New Order, The Blue Nile and Frou Frou. My love for English! And Scottish, I guess. My co-producer and I spent many days just experimenting with his Crumar, an Arturia synth, and lots and lots of Serum presets. 

The feeling I wanted to evoke in each song leaned towards a texture that was sharper and more shimmering. Like a memory you beg yourself not to forget, or a nostalgia for something you know won’t exist in the daylight. Synths were the perfect sonic world for this mystery.

Paris Paloma makes an appearance on “After All”. How did the collab come about? How was the process? 

I had written this sort of devastating ballad about love, which was my final track addition to the EP. We’d been toying with the idea of turning the song into a duet and Paris was an artist I instantly thought of. It was beautiful to hear After All become almost like a calling out to love, two people reminiscing and lamenting together. 

What’s your favourite fleeting feeling?

 I love those rare bursts of undeniable happiness. Like laughing so so hard with my friends at a diner or with my lover in bed or my parents at a bar, and you’re laughing so hard that you have to focus on breathing so you don’t choke. Or at the end of a ridiculous, perfect night out where you made questionable decisions, and now you’re sitting in a taxi on the highway and doing that stupid thing where you stick your head out the window and watch the light against the water, and you romanticise your silly, inconsequential life with all its melodrama and indulgence. But in that moment, you get a flicker of knowing you’re where you’re meant to be. That’s the pinnacle of fleeting feelings.

What do you want listeners to take away from the EP? What does it mean to you?
I just want people to feel. I never know what to tell people to take away from a piece of music I make. I hope it pushes a sense of living deeply, feeling truly aware of the moment. I hope it’s the soundtrack to nostalgia or the score to momentary bliss. That is what this music did for me.

What’s to come in 2026?
I’m embarking on the biggest headline tour of my career to date across North America and the UK between March and May. Meeting strangers across countries and states. Writing more and more. Chasing fleeting feelings. Besides all of this, I have no idea what’s to come. And how lucky am I.

Words – Ben Tibbits

Photography – Florence Sullivan