Sara Wolff, a wistful and melancholy independent artist has released her debut EP, titled ‘When You Left the Room.’ The release is tinged with sadness and packed full of low and heady vocals.
Hailing from Norway, Wolff found her alt-folk/indie voice in Merseyside after studying at university in the UK. The young artist has already dropped a series of well-received singles since first appearing on the music scene in 2018. Fan favourite ‘Forget Me Not‘ has nearly amassed 10,000 streams on Spotify.
Comprised of five different tracks, ‘When You Left The Room’ explores a variety of themes through Wolff’s signature indie vibes and impressive guitar skills. With a passion for writing stories and a love of playing music, Wolff is able to create a musical storytelling world with a mass of layers that drag a listener deeper into her mellow sound. Her strong creative outlook is reflected heavily in each track of the EP.
One of the more quiet songs on the EP is ‘Cotton Socks’, which depicts a tale of innocence and ignorance. It shares the idea of growing from a young girl into a woman, and with the issue of protecting women being brought into the UK media limelight, this track’s relevance is more prominent than ever. With gloomy vocals and slow guitars combined with synths and the occasional drumbeat towards the end of the track, ‘Cotton Socks’ is a very dark track indeed.
“I am bumping into everyone / ‘Cause I don’t know what to do”
With the sombre track opening the EP, we see that the other tracks do follow suit. They are rather sad, featuring a buoyant mix of guitar and percussion.
‘Hands’ depicts a story of a lost or dangerous love of intense proportions, with lyrics such as “I watched the world turn, shaking the leaves off the trees / While you were up all night killing the flies“. As a storyteller, Wolff illustrates that the lover’s relationship went sour and may have been lost. When speaking about the third track, originally released as a teaser for the EP in early February, Wolff said: “‘Bad Thoughts Compilation’ is a collection of all your feelings on a particularly bad day and reflects on why the solution is there but so difficult to reach. Those times you can’t get out of bed, you’re in a rut, sleep too long, don’t eat properly, scroll on your phone too much, cancel plans then feel bad about it, worry your friends won’t like you anymore, then stay in even longer. It’s a never-ending circle.”
Juxtaposed to earlier tracks, ‘Bad Thoughts Compilation‘ is both captivating and sweet, with a much more light-hearted message and features a richer mix of instruments. Wolff’s vocals echo the lighter feel, reaching higher notes with a candy-coated tone, much different to the quiet and mellow sounds of the earlier tracks. The penultimate track, ‘You Like Talking About Yourself’, is an intense mix of expressive vocals and vibrant sounds with very mixed lyrics. The title is clearly a representation of a narcissistic character within the artist’s life, something each listener can probably relate to if there’s an egomaniac within their friend group. Yet, at the point where Wolff declares “You ate my firstborn son“, the music becomes rampant and things just get weird.
‘Get Away For A While’ wraps up Wolff’s story arc in a perfect way, as she melodically sings about getting away from everyday life, as wind chimes are heard clinking in the background. This track features perfectly synchronised guitar strums alongside beautiful, harmonious backing vocals. Listeners are then hit with a heady mash-up of drums and loud synths after the second chorus, leaving you gagging for more.
If ‘When You Left The Room’ is anything to go by, Sara Wolff is on track to release more amazing music, and here at Safe And Sound, we can’t wait to hear more, especially after that crescendo of a cliff-hanger on the final track of her EP.
Disclaimer: Some lyrics may be slightly incorrect, as there are no official lyrics published by the artist, meaning that they had to be written by ear.
