Sarah Kinsley on How Luca Guadagnino’s ‘Queer’ Helped Inspire Her Latest EP, ‘Fleeting’

As its title explicitly says, Sarah Kinsley’s latest EP, “Fleeting,” is about impermanence, the idea that nothing ever completely goes away. “Who knew dead things could come back to kill us?,” she says, recounting a poem from Lucille Clifton, one of the inspirations behind the EP.  

The California-spawned artist-producer says she was struck by how closely Luca Guadagnino’s 2024 film “Queer,” based on William S. Burroughs’ novel of the same name, echoed her feelings at the time. The film follows an American expatriate and addict played by Daniel Craig as he grows increasingly infatuated with Drew Starkey’s character Eugene Allerton. The duo embarks on a journey through the jungle to find a psychedelic that Lee hopes holds telepathic connection. At the core of the film is Lee’s loneliness and desire to exist transcendently.

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“We think that things that we experience die or don’t linger any longer, and then one day you wake up and you’re unable to do anything except think about this thing that happened ages ago,” she says. “I have never, ever been immune from that. [Seeing the film] was like holding up a really terrifying jagged mirror to my own emotions and self.”

Kinsley’s career has been gaining increasing momentum in the five years since her early viral hit “The King.” Since the success of her breakout single, Kinsley has continued to evolve her sound over the course of a 2024 album, “Escaper,” and four EPs.

“Fleeting” is a progression from the album, with deeply personal lyrics strung across synth-pop beats. The project’s release coincided with Kinsley’s self-directed video for “Truth of Pursuit.” She remembers creating the single, “in my apartment, hunched over the computer, searching through like thousands of drum samples and just kind of whispering into a mic for hours.”

Written and co-produced with collaborator Jake Aron, “Fleeting” is also an homage to her adopted hometown of New York. Inspired by the city’s nightlife, Kinsley channeled the feeling of leaving a party alone after spending the night surrounded by a crowd, and how that combination of togetherness and solitude left her “somehow feeling closer to myself.”

Kinsley, calling from a stop in Mississippi on her first headlining tour, recalls a similar feeling during an earlier show at the Fonda Theater in Los Angeles — which literally followed in the footsteps of Paul McCartney, who’d played the venue two days earlier. Fans had cut out several hundred paper blue hearts, passed them out to other audience members, and during her rendition of “Reverie,” the crowd put them up on their phone’s flashlights. When Kinsley opened her eyes, “It was this sea of beautiful hearts,” she marveled. “I was so caught off guard!”

Her relationship with her fans has been interactive for some time, as she’s increasingly shared her creative process with fans on social media. The connection goes both ways, as Kinsley responded to fan requests for a reimagined release of the EP after she’d teased stripped-down snippets on social media. “Fleeting (The Piano Versions)” features spare versions of all five tracks from the original.

“The first time I ever showed my process, it was a giant opening of a floodgate, people were just so excited,” she says. “I think there’s like a newfound curiosity, especially with younger people, to understand what they’re listening to, why they’re listening to it, and why it’s interesting.”