Sabrina Song makes music that’s a self-proclaimed blueprint for how to break and unbreak your heart. Well, not self-proclaimed exactly, technically it was a classmate who came up with the phrase, and it just seemed to work.
“I thought it really summed up what I do in my music—exploring fears that I have, unpacking emotional situations I’m trying to distill into a cohesive narrative,” Sabrina said. “As complicated as things can be, I’m trying to put that into something understandable.”
What might that sound like? Sometimes it’s a song wrapped in ‘90s-tinged folk pop, or a lush ballad, but at the heart of it remains Sabrina Song’s subtle vocal delivery, occasionally leaning into big choral moments, always with an ease. But that ease took the 23-year-old Sofar artist a little while to find while studying music at NYU.
“I spent the first two years just being so intimidated by my peers,” the artist said. “I’ve been performing and releasing music for a while, but I feel like the last year or two feels like where it actually started to make sense to me. It took me so long to be comfortable with calling myself an artist.”
The shift coincided with a slew of single releases, along with Sabrina Song’s newest EP, When It All Comes Crashing Down, four intimate tracks filled with sultry tones and percussive shapes that feel almost intuitive. Recently, the NYC-based artist spent a month in London as Sofar’s Artist in Residence (following NEONE The Wonderer), playing Sofar shows around the city and working on new songs.
“It was really nice to have the space and time, even physically,” Sabrina said. “I don’t live alone [and]I’m usually working an in-person job, so being able to sit with myself was a huge privilege that I had there. I think it yielded some interesting new songs that wouldn’t have come about otherwise. It wasn’t that the music was about London or being alone, it was more the position of being away from everyone at home.”
Now back in NYC, Sabrina Song’s continuing to craft those songs, maybe for a full length, or another stream of singles ahead. She’s trying not to define anything too firmly, to keep letting things move freely, with confidence.
“I used to define success so rigidly,” Sabrina said. “Now when I think about where I want my career to go, I think all of this is part of the career. I used to think when I get to this milestone that will be the beginning, when it’s like, I won’t get anywhere close to those things if I don’t have the things I’m doing now. Sometimes I tear myself down for not being closer to where I want to be, [but] I’ve just started to look at it really differently. Even if I reach the peak of my career in my late 30s, all of it has had value, even if it takes turns I didn’t expect.”
Words by Sofar Editorial Team
Photo credit: Sabrina Song, photo by Bao Ngo
