Sabrina Song Shines at Brooklyn Made

Words & photos: Natalia Barroso

Brooklyn-based Sabrina Song made her mark at the Brooklyn Made last Friday with the satin vocals and remarkable emotion that oozes from her songwriting. The artist set the stage for the romantically-curated tunes, with performances beautifully lit in pinks and adorned with heart-shaped balloons in honor of Valentine's Day.

Song enamored the crowd with "To Know You," the opening track on her 2022 EP When It All Comes Crashing Down. She tells the confessions of a lover's unfiltered devotion with soft, harmony-laden lyrics and flirty guitar and drums. She began the live performance slowly, like a whisper worked up to a proud vow, as the sounds of the band surged into a cinematic crescendo.

Song has a talent for painting this emotional dichotomy throughout her discography, as evident in "It Was Not a Beautiful Night." A bass gently opened the song before cranking up to an upbeat, almost violent fuse of sounds that perfectly represent the complexity of a flourishing romance.

Her band's airy-yet-sparkling indie pop was palpable through the cheer shared among its four musicians. Their coy humor interplayed seamlessly, mirroring the uplifting synergy present in their musical arrangements. The friendship between Song and her guitarist, Garrett Chabot, had the audience chuckling with their ongoing banter about re-tuning the guitar for the songs she'd tailored for the night.

For a Valentine's special, Song covered Adrianne Lenker's "Anything" and gracefully captured the childlike eagerness of falling in love. She isolated her vocals and sang with a gossamer yearning that preserved the raw work of Big Thief's lead woman.

She then moved on to "Okay, Okay," her new single released the same night, which took on the same coziness that left you to abandon yourself in the music. Her latest track follows the same vulnerability she has become known for without cheapening the quality of her sound. This song follows a much more painful voice than we’ve seen from her other tracks, effortlessly illustrating her ability to move us across experiences through her writing.

She and the band synthesized the biggest groove on "Strawberry," through which we flirted through musical landscapes and came intimately close to the haunted feeling of a crush. Her velvety vocals underscored the sincerity of her poetry, leaving the audience in awe of her charm.

Below are some photos captured during the night.