Sarah Grace White is a young songwriter from Los Angeles. She was born into one of those musical households that encouraged her to take up spots in school choirs, bands and even a brief run practicing Bulgarian throat singing. All those roads now lead White to her second EP Sinkhole.
Sinkhole will come out on Friday, June 28. It’s a dynamic extended play that experiments with layers of rainforest-like percussion, strings, keys and more. White turned to her new friends and Sharon Van Etten’s longtime collaborators Jorge Balbi and Devin Hoff to help bring Sinkhole to the surface. Balbi co-produced the EP with White. Hoff was a key instrumentalist in bringing White’s visions to life. The track “Light” also got music video treatment from director Emilie Wilde. White acts in the “Light” video, recalling one of the many talents she took up when she was younger.
Read on and get to know Sarah Grace White. Listen to her latest single “Your Man” and watch its music video here. Scroll down to watch the music video for “Light” starring White.
Get To Know Sarah Grace White:
Beyond The Stage: Sinkhole is an in-depth work of music. The lyrics are poetic. The instrumentation features many layers. Some artists write lyrics before the music, others do the opposite. Tell us about your songwriting process.
Sarah Grace White: Anything can start a song, as long as I’m paying attention to what comes up. Most of my favorite things I’ve written have come completely out of nowhere – a melody line stuck in my head that needs to be properly flushed out, or a phrase that needs a home. I try to get as much out as possible when I first feel inspired to write, often when driving or on a hike – that subconscious place is usually the closest to the true feeling. Then I’ll go home and write standing up, pacing, a drum beat or quick chord progression looping in the background, and I’ll try to demo vocals immediately and then start stacking them. I’ll often write in quick, manic bursts – 3 songs in a week and then nothing for a moment. We’ll see how sustainable that is going forward. That being said I’m not anti-discipline or routine – sitting down to write with a blank canvas more just acts as an exercise tool for me. Even if it’s not a direct path to product, sitting and working at an instrument or song tends to open me up later and I’m more likely to be hit with some random inspiration when I’m at the grocery store. It’s just strengthening that access point.
BTS: The song “All I Can Do” is minimalist but packs so many emotions that it sounds ginormous. You played the piano and sang while Devin Hoff played the upright bass. Do you think there’s something to be said about keeping songs simple to get the message you want to deliver across to the listener?
Sarah Grace White: I love space in music. Jorge Balbi, who produced this EP with me, always notes that the fewer the elements, the larger the music sounds. Sometimes you want a soundscape and a whole thing happening in the production, but “All I Can Do” is a story song. There’s so much information in the lyrics and the movement, I didn’t want anything to get in the way. Devin is one of my favorite musicians at communicating through an instrument. Their playing is so restrained and thoughtful, and what ends up happening is a conversation between the melody line in the vocal and in the bass, mirroring the conversation I have with myself, God, the Universe, etc… Creates a lot of musical subtext which I hope carries the story along.
BTS: There are also very in-depth songs on Sinkhole. The title track is a spacey carnival of masterful mixing. Your voice weaves between the pianos, other vocals and cymbal-filled percussion. “Your Man” is another song like that. Do you like taking advantage of your resources in the studio to put songs like those together?
Sarah Grace White: Each of these songs played with a different set of resources and it’s great to see what you can come up with in varying containers. I’d say the constant is starting with a good backbone so it feels like a song with even one element. We built the title track at Valentine Studios, which gave the basics in the track a warmth that is very unique to that space. The drums and bass sounded so good together that we were able to build and explore freely with the added elements, tape loops and unusual instrumentation. Your Man we started with Emily Elkin playing cello and we lived with just the cello and the vocal and a simple synth line for a long time. The biggest resource I draw on is community and the unreal musicians I’ve met who are on this EP.
BTS: Between your piano, upright bass, steel guitars and bassoons, there are a lot of different sounds on this EP. What inspires you to take advantage of sounds other artists aren’t using on their records?
Sarah Grace White: It’s always about resonance and tone, both musically and emotionally. If the song works at its barest, it’s often already lingering at the door of a world and you can hear where it wants to be. Like most of my decisions in music, there isn’t much thought. Either Jorge or I will listen to a demo and pretty quickly know what the star is in terms of a guest instrument, and I often try to incorporate that element pretty quickly in midi – steel guitar, bells, fretless – keyboards are amazing. I also think we tend towards unusual instruments because neither of us play guitar, so when a song starts with just a synth or piano and drums, it’s very open. It makes guitar all the more special and specific when someone comes in to play it. In the case of the title track, I wanted something dark and heavy to offset the lilting story and give it some dimension. Cue Jorge looking up contrabassoon players in our area.
BTS: You co-produced this record with Jorge Balbi. He has a storied history as a percussionist and has collaborated with Sharon Van Etten and others. How were you able to lean on him to get the sounds you wanted on Sinkhole and did you learn anything new that you might use on future record productions?
Sarah Grace White: I feel incredibly lucky to have met Jorge when I did. I was at a point where I was figuring out how to unite the music I was writing with the music that I loved. When we first started working together a few years ago on my first EP, we quickly discovered we had such similar taste in what we wanted to hear. We loved the same bands, and producers and sounds, and this has been the most valuable piece of our creative partnership – it’s allowed us to develop a highly productive shorthand, and a lot of trust.
He’s inspired and taught me to lean on something I was always ashamed of, which is my so-called ignorance around music. I’ve played keys all my life but almost exclusively by ear, and I tend to write around a chord progression more than right on it. Often, I write without any instruments at all, just layers of vocals and harmonies. I love dissonance and repetition and rhythm, and none of it is intentionally created that way, it’s just what I want to hear when I sit down at any instrument. Despite being a world-class drummer, Jorge works in this same intuitive way on synths, and we’ve created some of our favorite lines by playing something wrong, or guessing. Jorge’s my favorite synth player because he claims to have no idea what he’s doing, and neither do I. I’ve definitely learned how to trust myself more.
BTS: The song “Light” has a music video directed by Emilie Wilde. There are scenes where you lay down in a field during the day, overlook a busy highway at sunset and you’re even behind the wheel of a car in some shots. How did you enjoy acting in a video for your own song?
Sarah Grace White: It’s the biggest treat to me – I started as an actor and am pretty film-obsessed, so music always has a visual component for me. Often when I write, I imagine a song as a score for a particular feeling. I feel so lucky to have a bunch of friends in film and photography who are always trying to make something, and the videos for me have become a little cinematic universe in tandem with the music. I love how they all start to connect as they go along. The same thing I want in my music – space, movement, something off but familiar – I also strive for that quality in my videos.
BTS: You went out on tour with Dehd last year and play shows regularly. How do you approach live performances and try to showcase the emotion in your songs onstage?
Sarah Grace White: Playing live is a continuous evolution, and my favorite piece in all of this. Going out with Dehd was my first tour, and I learned so much in 3 weeks I couldn’t even believe it. With every show my main takeaway is that there’s no ceiling for what it can be. In terms of emotionally showcasing the music, I don’t feel there’s a better way to do this than singing it for people in a room. In fact, the shows lately have been so emotional that they’ve done the opposite and inspired me to be bolder in the studio and in my writing. I used to think of shows as a presentation, and the more I do it the more I realize it’s a relationship. I want to get closer.
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