New York City-based singer-songwriter Sarah Kinsley blurs the line between limerence and love with the blinding lights of a disco ball on her EP, “Fleeting.” Released Friday, the record is her first release since her debut album “Escaper” in September 2024.
However ironic the opening track “Lonely Touch” appears, Kinsley vividly describes how overbearing it can feel to yearn. Through juxtaposing acts, Kinsley depicts an infatuation so elusive it has left her speechless: “How to say what I want / Is to talk without tongues / Just to speak, not to yearn / Just to know without words.”
Kinsley’s intimate piano melodies quickly become a cloudy mist of synths and guitars, over a repetitive, yet groovy baseline. The bridge exclaims a question so looming, Kinsley asks it multiple times: “Where do I put my heart?”
Without an answer, Kinsley continues to search for a place to keep her heart — albeit on her sleeve — stumbling upon the “Truth Of Pursuit.” Here, Kinsley dangles her heartstrings like a pendulum, unclear if she is reminiscing over a love or reeling for one. Uprooting her life simply to feel what she yearns for, Kinsley elaborates on the third verse, singing, “Turned my life upside down for a face / Destroy my entire world for the chase.”
However self-destructive or optimistic this chase may seem, Kinsley portrays the pursuit of feeling as something impossible to resist, and perhaps equally impossible to obtain.
Kinsley slows down on the next two tracks, honestly bearing her heart through a piano ballad. Mistakenly getting lost in her timeless imagination, she briefly embraces the ignorance a dream provides, only to grudgingly return to reality on “Reverie.”
The chorus sings, “Just a reverie, a little piece of me / But never mind / My love for you is at the start and the end of time.” The ballad continues to quest for a feeling so extraordinary that even dreaming of it has left her empty. Approaching the track’s end, Kinsley reminisces, “It’s just a dream, don’t you get it? / It’s all a dream, just forget it.”
As “Reverie” lyrically expands Kinsley’s layered emotional maturity, the bridge expands sonically, introducing a distorted guitar and familiar synth alongside Kinsley’s angelic wailing, all singing over a laid-back groove.
Abruptly coming to an end — akin to waking from a dream — Kinsley reveals her imagination is only as infinite as her ability to accept the reality that follows.
The closing track on the EP serves as the title track, and reveals the pinnacle truth of love, loss and what’s lingering in between: it’s all fleeting. On what sounds like the end credits to a ‘90s coming-of-age movie, Kinsley balances the dance-pop production with crushing lyrics, saying, “It’s not forever, it’s just a feeling / It’s not forever, it’s only fleeting.”
Optimistic in the end, the outro echoes above a dark room of synths and spotlights, “Things will turn around, they will turn around / It’s not forever, it’s just for now.”
Emotionally transparent as glass, Kinsley’s latest record reveals a heart shattered into a thousand pieces, revealing a disco ball, pressing each listener to reflect on what is and always will be, “Fleeting.”