In Conversation with the Brooklyn Songwriter on her New EP and the Vulnerability of Play

*Big Trick* EP artwork By Morgan Winston

“I don't think I've talked about this,” Sabrina Song began through a laugh, describing how the concept for her latest EP, Big Trick, came to be, “I was actually applying for a grant at the time, and I needed to have a project for it. So I made up a project called Big Trick. And then I finished the application, and I was like: Wait, why don’t I just do this?”

Almost like she fell for her own Big Trick.

An indie-rock singer-songwriter and producer based in Brooklyn, Sabrina Song’s lyrical brilliance captures the tender corners of young adulthood. The new EP, Big Trick, was released May 8, following her 2024 debut album, You Can Stay in One Spot, and I’d Love You The Same. With a discography already earning her praise as an indie artist to watch, Song maintains the soft, shimmering textures and emotionally precise writing she’s become known for — but this time with a sharper sense of boldness and play.

“I started the songs on the EP before I knew what was going to be next,” the artist told me over a video call from a corner seat at an East Williamsburg cafe.

It wasn’t until after the EP’s title track, “Big Trick”, was written that the artist knew she had an EP on her hands that dealt with “disillusionment… frustration, and this period of life where you’re squaring where you thought you would be and what you have.”

In perfect creative irony, Song described having to “make up” the concept for Big Trick before realizing the project had been there, pieces aligned, waiting for it all to ‘click’. Rather than “dreaming up a concept, a title, and a vision,” all Song had to do was recognize it. She even compared the making of her title track to a shoe fitting correctly. Once she tried on “Big Trick”, she knew what the EP wanted to be. It fit perfectly. No tricks necessary.

“I made that song with two of my newer friends at the time, Rufus and Tom, who are super talented writers and producers. And really fun to work with,” she told me of the track’s origin story. The two collaborators were gearing up to move to LA when they all decided to “try one more time and see what happens”. Song, not used to writing on the spot, wasn’t sure how that would go, but their ideas stirred something for her. “...they started playing that first progression, and it sounded so cool and bold. It really inspired me,” Song admitted.

The idea behind the “big trick” in question is something Song had spoken to her friends about: A strangely relatable fear that we’ve been performing through some sort of mask.

Song figures it may be tied to anxiety, insecurity, and the fear that the version of yourself people love might not survive closer inspection. “...it’s this feeling that they've tricked everyone in their life into thinking that they're a good person,” she explained, “I've experienced it in relationships as well. It's almost like, if everyone saw the real me, they would hate me – like it's a veneer. I thought that was really interesting. The chorus says: I'm falling for your big trick. I thought that was a funny phrase.”

It’s something baked into our most vulnerable of relationships, and whispering in our most shadowy of thoughts. But here, it’s delivered with a bit of a laugh.

Song’s debut album, You Could Stay in One Spot, and I’d Love You The Same, was an introspective and cutting project with the same lyrically driven and delicately-toned philosophies you’ll find on Big Trick. This time, though, there’s a tangible breaking-the-shell of sorts. On Big Trick, the songs feel less sealed in the pages of a journal and more alive in the world with us.

Where she described her previous music as “somber or introspective… internal and meditative,” the songwriter knew she wanted these new tracks to have more of a “bite” or “cheekiness” to them-- leaning into playfulness and humor. And while that shift challenged her, it also felt more authentic. “...in life, I'm very loud and not serious all the time,” Song expressed, “... it really does feel like the most like ‘me’ I've ever gotten with something.”

Playfulness extended into how the EP was created, too: with more collaborators than Sabrina Song had ever worked with, inviting experiment, and working somewhat sporadically.

Typically, for an artist who also works as a producer, Sabrina Song’s own songwriting process is very lyric-driven. It’s not so surprising when you listen into the clever poetry of her music. “...in general, it's hard for me to just noodle around, play the guitar and think of something. I feel like I have to really have something to say.”

While that remained true for Big Trick, there was also a level of inviting surprise. “I was in a period of trying to say yes and not close myself off to people that I thought made cool stuff,” Song says. And between the tracks she worked on alone, with friends, and with collaborators she’d only just met, she happened to find, “a really cool synergy happening.”

Sounds like fun. But at the same time, the play behind Big Trick wasn’t casual or effortless. Playfulness isn’t necessarily easier than introspection — for Song it was, in some ways, more exposing. “...it is actually more vulnerable than writing like a very sad song with your heart on your sleeve,” she said, “‘Background Actor’ is about feeling belittled or undermined– I was a little bit nervous putting that in this song. That is almost more humiliating than sadness.”

Song also mentioned working with other people on Big Trick meant releasing some control of both the process and the narrative. The songwriter/producer often knows her music as she’s dreaming it up down to its textures and details. For tracks on the EP like “LOCK” and “Moving Target”, she knew exactly what they were. “...the production is almost part of the songwriting — it's like an extension of the writing,” Song explained of those two. But that wasn’t the case for the entirety of Big Trick. Writing “Play it Cool” with a producer she’d met the same day, for example, was a pleasant surprise. With her experience producing for other artists, the script flipped on Sabrina Song that day, and that ‘synergy’ seemed to make its way in. “It's like the world's being built out equally together,” she said, “I really hadn't experienced that before– starting a song from scratch on the day.”

It’s always hard to let a creative vision be influenced by co-creation. But for Song, there was another factor at play as someone who’s made herself known as a great producer. “I used to feel this need to produce everything completely alone, or else people wouldn't believe I could do it,” she explained, “And I think I’ve finally gotten over that. That’s been nice. Because it's not like I'm doing everything alone out of necessity. I'm producing because I love it. And if I want to bring other people in, I can… So I'm just trying to be open to what is working and trying new things, and it always comes back to what's best for the song.”

There, in that shift, was that playful Big Trick irony again. Coproducing the project with several inspiring collaborators was no trick, but a choice that revealed the project’s potential. Across six songs that unravel insecurity, self-compassion, and disillusionment, Song arrives at something notably self-assured. In letting other people into the process and inviting humor and play, Sabrina Song’s Big Trick became her bravest yet.

💿 stream Big Trick where you listen 
📻 and keep up with Sabrina Song on Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and her Website

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