Sarah Kinsley couldn’t resist the pull of indie music. It was classical music that the California-born, New York-based breakout artist studied as a child: she grew up playing violin and piano, performing with orchestras, and learning music theory. She has since broken away from the classical world, though, moving with confidence into popular music. Her viral singles Over + Under and The King, and most recently her debut album, Escaper, marry emotional lyrics, an indie/alternative production sensibility, and expansive instrumentation to create a palette of sonic colors that is entirely her own.

Escaper tells a story of grief, and her desire to steal away from the death of a close friend. Although it explores a very specific period of pain in her own life, Kinsley’s loss resonates much farther afield. “There are beautiful things worth keeping us […] alive,” she sings on the album’s sixth track “Beautiful Things,” a sentiment that rings as true after the loss of a friend as it does in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic; at the height of numerous ongoing geopolitical conflicts; and as climate change continues to produce fatal conditions the world over. On her North American tour, Kinsley shared her grief with a live audience for the first time. To her surprise, this was a healing experience, which brought a whole new perspective to her own words. While creating the album was one form of healing, sharing it proved to be another.

Kinsley saw Escaper come to life with the help of GRAMMY-award winning producer John Congleton, whose previous collaborators include Sharon van Etten, St. Vincent, Regina Spektor, Angel Olsen and Canadian duo Tegan & Sara. Angel Olsen’s fourth studio album, All Mirrors, co-produced with Congleton, was particularly influential for Kinsley. She remembers being totally taken in by the dream-like sounds of the record’s string parts, Olsen’s mesmerizing vocals, and the wide array of percussion and electronics. The similarities are evident: like Escaper, All Mirrors marries epic symphonic production qualities with personal, reflective prose.

Congleton was something of a bucket-list collaborator for Kinsley, she shares. Having produced all of her previously released EPs and singles by herself in the comfort of her apartment, the process of working with someone else on her music wasn’t entirely evident. Kinsley had never had to describe her musical ideas to a collaborator, had never needed to put her instincts into words, or outline the ways her musical style often challenges genre categorization. It took developing a shared vocabulary — a clear, efficient means of communication – for the pair to start making magic together.

Fans of Kinsley’s might be surprised at her decision to work with Congleton, After all, the rising-star has been fairly outspoken about the lack of female producers recognized for their work in popular music. In 2022, only 2.8% of producers across 1000 popular songs were women, and in 2024, for a fifth consecutive year, no women were nominated for Producer of the Year at the GRAMMY Awards. These are facts of which Kinsley, a producer herself, is all-too-aware, and ones she hopes will change in her lifetime.While she remains committed to being part of that change, and to amplifying the voices of fellow female producers as much as possible, it is important to her that these efforts do not lead to tokenism. Female producers should be recognized for the quality of the work that they do, they should be hired and collaborated with because they have interesting and valuable creative ideas – not simply because they are women. Kinsley therefore stands by the choice to work with Congleton on her debut album. She chose to work with a man, yes, but beyond that, with someone who was exciting and inspiring to her. She believes that truly successful musical partnerships need to be organic and sincere. To have chosen to work with a female producer simply because she was a woman would have risked the integrity of the project.

Kinsley took her grief and made it into something beautiful, sometimes even upbeat. She took her classical training and spun it into indie-pop. She took the lack of female producers in her industry, and created a producing partnership with one of her heroes. It’s hard to say what Kinsley will do next. We’ll be listening.