Sarah Kinsley – California-born, Connecticut-raised and New York-based singer-songwriter – is set to release her fifth EP, Fleeting, on February 13th. Defined as “passing swiftly” by Merriam-Webster, Kinsley built an entire world inspired by this single concept. Though a simple definition, “Fleeting” is a track that is anything but. Her first release since her 2024 debut album Escaper, “Fleeting” was released into the world in late September of last year. Kinsley had teased its release with audio snippets online, hinting at something larger on the horizon for 2026.
From her track “The King,” which went viral in 2021, garnering nearly 60 million streams on Spotify to date, to the beautifully devastating standalone single “The Giver,” Kinsley has become revered for her ability to make music that captures the weight of desire and the dull ache of true yearning. Feeling at once like an escape and a pursuit of something that is endlessly out of reach, she has established herself as a force in the alternative indie pop rock scene. She possesses the ability to articulate unfettered, raw emotion through her rich sound and poignant, evocative lyrics, making for a listening experience that is nothing short of sublime.
Earlier this month, Crave Music Magazine had the opportunity to step into Sarah Kinsley’s world and hear about her upcoming release in °1824’s press conference. She fielded a range of questions related to her training in classical music, unique production techniques, internet presence and how her time in New York helped shape this project. As a theme that manifests throughout Kinsley’s entire catalog, time is something she is deeply aware of and sensitive to.
With each of her responses, it became abundantly clear how important time – both literally and abstractly – was to the creation of “Fleeting.”
Fleeting is an EP that, in Kinsley’s words, is “[…] really about impermanence” and “[…] understanding that you can still experience euphoria or catharsis even knowing that something isn’t going to last.” The title track of the EP maintains Kinsley’s distinct sound, sonic texture and lyrical gut-punches, while simultaneously setting the stage for an exciting new chapter in her career – both as a musician and a person. The cathartic dance-pop track mourns and celebrates the familiar sentiment that nothing lasts forever. However, instead of change being something Kinsley feels she must run from, as she may have in the past, she embraces it with open arms.
One change, in Kinsley’s words, that has been “very monumental” in the creation of this EP is her lyrical transparency, which stems from having achieved a new understanding of herself. When she was younger and first starting to write music, she said that her lyrical ambiguity, use of metaphor and analogies were a way for her to “hide in meaning.” A defense mechanism of sorts – to separate what she ‘[…] actually understood the song to be about and what people could attach meaning to.” After feeling stuck for some time and going through personal changes, she shifted her approach. By writing more literally, leaving little room for lyrical interpretation, Kinsley said: “I realized that just saying something actually as it is, and being super honest about what I feel, what I want, or what I desire, is actually much more freeing and much more powerful.”
This is especially apparent in the second single released from the EP, “Lonely Touch.” She wrote the track after watching Luca Guadagnino’s 2024 film Queer; it was the first song she wrote for the EP, she revealed. “My resolution is to bring back the art of yearning,” she wrote in a New Year’s post promoting “Lonely Touch” before its January 9th release. For Kinsley, yearning is an art form, and one that she has a knack for capturing in her work beautifully. Though “Lonely Touch” is on another level. “I want to feel it all / The edges of your soul / One body in the dark / Where do I put my heart?” she sings. Her newfound sense of honesty and straightforward songwriting only magnifies the song’s relatability, maximizing its boundless resonance.
Kinsley highlighted the outro of “Lonely Touch” as a piece in the EP that she is especially proud of: “[I]t felt like this amazing sonic representation of what I felt in that song, which is this unrelenting desire or yearning that you can’t separate yourself from.” As the song reaches its climax and the strings swell, Kinsley repeats the line: “Where do I put my heart?” The listener is surrounded and engulfed by an “unstoppable wall of sound,” as she put it. The crushing weight of her longing intensifies with every iteration.
With this in mind, Crave asked: “Do you feel a connection between your EPs, debut album and now your fifth EP? Is there a throughline you can pinpoint?”
To which Kinsley candidly replied: “I think the throughline within all of my music to date is […] that I have an ever-changing, ever-growing fear of time passing, […] death, and loss that really permeates everything I write about. It’s something that I think about all the time.”
As you get older, time is something you weirdly feel like you have less of, Kinsley emphasized. “I think back to when I was […] eight or nine. Being nine, I felt like I was nine for years. I felt like I experienced time so much slower back then, but that is something I think about constantly.”
“I was writing about this fear of time passing on my first EP, The Fall. With The King, I wanted to accomplish something or feel like I was paying homage to my life before I turned 20. Cypress was an EP for me about hiding, or retreating, trying to save literal time. Ascensionwas [a] precursor to Escaper [about] having this magical place to transcend to or tap into, and Escaperis obviously about literally going and opening a portal to another place.”
“All of those things, and then this upcoming EP, I think, are somehow talking about time: my manifestation of it, or trying to run away from it, or trying to just […] collect it more. I don’t know if that will ever not be a part of my music, honestly. That’s definitely the sort of theme for me.”
This awareness of the ever-increasing past and ever-receding future is a driving force in Kinsley’s work, and has been since the beginning. Each project documents Kinsley’s life, her experiences and where she was at during a specific moment in time. As she navigates the complexities of girlhood, growing up, love, loss and grief. Kinsley reminds us that our impermanence is one of the very things that make us human. Fleeting isn’t just a word. It’s a state of being, feeling and living. A fickle thing, but one that ultimately makes life worth living.
This spring, Sarah Kinsley will be embarking on the Fleeting Tour, traversing across North America from March to April, making twenty-four stops in just over a month. In late May, she will venture across the pond and, within eight days, play six shows in Ireland and the United Kingdom. Opening in Seattle on March 25th and concluding in London on May 28th, the thirty-stop tour includes cities and iconic venues such as North Carolina’s Cat’s Cradle, Brooklyn Steel, Fonda Theatre in Los Angeles, Chicago’s Thalia Hall and The Garage in Glasgow. Though nothing is forever, seeing Sarah Kinsley on tour is certain to offer memories that will last a lifetime. Fleeting is yours on February 13th, don’t miss it!
Get your tour tickets here.
Keep up with Sarah Kinsley:Spotify / Apple Music / Instagram / TikTok / YouTube / Website
