sadie announces debut EP Nowhere, shares title track

“I’ve always been drawn to sad songs that make you want to dance,” says Anna Schwab, who performs, as of recently, as sadie. This proclivity led her to the likes of Charli XCX, AG Cook, SOPHIE, Bladee, Björk, and Kate Bush — all of whom she cites as inspiration for her debut EP, Nowhere. Announced today along with its opener and title track, the tape will arrive June 21.

Schwab wears the above influences on her sleeve, but her sound is more than the sum of its spiritual forebears." Both "Nowhere" and last month's "4am," which will close out the forthcoming project, hit hyperpop touchstones, but she imbues them with a melancholy that feels authentic, not merely aesthetic. Co-produced by Joe Valle of Wet and Maya Laner (True Blue), the record promises to scratch all itches sad and danceable.

"'Nowhere' is sort of about listlessness, and about the slippery quality of emotions — it’s about feeling a sense of purpose and joie de vivre for a moment, and losing it the minute you feel it," she writes of the new single. "I usually find the minute I name, or recognize, a feeling — it’s gone. And then the memory of the feeling, and the desire to feel it again, makes its absence more acute. I wrote the song in early spring. I find the world takes on a sort of manic happiness and electric hum at the first signs of spring, and it’s always the time of year when I feel the most low. 'April is the cruelest month,' as TS Eliot says. So I wanted to juxtapose those feelings with bubblegum melodies and the sort of ice-cream truck inspired synths you hear in the background, to help capture that sense of dissonance.”

sadie's "Nowhere" video, directed by Matt Hixon, premieres below.