Sarah Kinsley is a singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist from California. Her musical background is characterized by her deep affection for pop and classical music, dedicating much of her childhood training in classical piano and violin while performing in youth orchestras and singing covers of her favorite pop songs. She credits these experiences as an influential part of her songwriting and growth. And through her upcoming debut album Escaper, her musical imagination becomes fully realized, and we get a glimpse into her world courtesy of °1824.
From listening to her tracks, her influences become astonishingly clear. She deftly weaves her pop and classical influences together into a coherent, harmonious musical vision. Her sound can be recognized through its euphoric qualities as she channels a unique musical perspective that feels both intimate, bold, grand, and free from any stylistic boundaries while pulling on the heart strings of her listeners through her bold pop sensibilities.
“When I was growing up, I would listen to so much radio. Pop songs to me, they tend to have the same expectation in classical music in terms of structure. If you look at the sonata form, for example, you know exactly what is going to happen in the song because of the structure. And I would argue pop music is the same thing. Once you hear the first half of the song, it’s very unlikely that you would be surprised by something.” For Sarah, these shared structural fundamentals are one of the reasons why merging pop and classical elements can feel so natural and instinctive in her creative explorations. She views these two musical paradigms of hearing and approaching music in a very similar connected mindset. “Classical music has pretty much made its way into every single genre. There’s a lot of music that incorporates orchestras. I love that so much—that’s the classical child in me.” In her own music, she asserts her feelings of honest selfish love out of creating string arrangements when she writes. “Stringed instruments in general have a sort of ability to make you feel emotions that a lot of other instruments can’t.”
In Escaper, she builds an immense world full of possibilities centering on the themes of escapism and letting go—where her pop/classical fusion becomes a perfect incarnation for this grand musical respite. Her music relishes in the rapturous sensations of escapism from the heartbreaks of the real world. “A huge part of this album is the process of ‘escape’ and what that looks like,” she confesses that she was coming from a place of grief and loss when writing the album, and the first half of the album is about this imagined world we would go to and music’s testament as a form expression that is necessary to help navigate through grief and understand more of yourself. However, as idyllic escapism can sound, Sarah came through with the realization that, although the idea and exercise of “escape” can be necessary for our own well-being and personal endurance, it doesn’t mean running away or abandoning our challenges. Ultimately, life is worth living, and there is beauty and strength in engaging this world in all its imperfections and shortcomings. “You are worthy of love, and love is worthy of you.”
- Carlo De Dios
