Keepsake of the Week: “how i remember” by Sarah Kang

“how i remember” is the first LP from jazz-soul-R&B singer/songwriter and 2022 Keepsake House Artist in Residence Sarah Kang and is this week’s #KOTW.

In this semi-weekly blog series, we post our favorite new or re-discovered releases in independent music, our Keepsake of the Week, or #KOTW.

Seasons change, genres blur, and what was once months becomes only days in Sarah Kang’s debut full-length album “how i remember,” a record that tells the story of life itself. Sarah has been releasing the songs on this record throughout the year, often performing them at Keepsake shows like Show Yourself and Linguistics, so many of us have heard them before. Somehow, though, they capture a nostalgic feeling that could only be described as fleeting.

“I thought we’d have a long time,” Sarah sings in the opening of “miss u.” It is an admission we can all relate to, so it feels like a warm invitation to trust Sarah as she walks us down memory lane. Sarah is holding the listener’s hand through all our firsts–falling in love (“cheeze”), losing someone (“once in a moon”), experiencing death (“miss u”)–until those firsts become our lasts (“end credits”) and we are sung to sleep (“goodnight” and “sweet dreams”).

The record opens with “prologue,” a hook of a song that not only keeps us listening, but will be stuck in our heads even as the album moves on (and yes, this feels purposeful). Sarah wants us to experience that longing for the past, wondering how time could go by so quickly. Even “cheeze,” which is perhaps the most outlier song of the album, is a thing of the past. Sarah isn’t supposed to eat cheese anymore (“I confess I’m lactose-intolerant”) and the honeymoon phase of her committed relationship sometimes feels long ago. 

Sarah keeps reaching backward for the first half of the album, stuck in a state of longing and daydreaming (“staring at the ceiling” in “prologue” or gazing at the moon). My favorite song is still “once in a moon,” not just because I love Sarah’s moon obsession, but also because of its waltzy strum, sweeping vocals, and the Patrick Hizon production grounded by the cello. Of course, it has my favorite line of the record too: “it doesn’t make sense / but I’d do it all again.” This is where Sarah starts to play with time in a noticeable way, because the phrase “once in a moon” is a complete reversal of the cliché “once in a blue moon.” She turns something that we associate with rareness into a feeling that comes every night, almost as if time is speeding up before our eyes. And after time crashes in “miss u,” we could all really use a lullaby.

“goodnight” and its interlude “sweet dreams,” the latter sung by Sarah’s nieces, make for an oddly perfect intermission on the record. They are the most obviously nostalgic tracks, transporting us to our childhood with the promise of being tucked in, and literally sung by children in the case of “sweet dreams.” Still, at first it surprised me to see songs about going to sleep sequenced well before the album’s end. Upon listening to the record in its entirety, however, I think it’s a rather brilliant decision, because the second half of songs are quietly different from the first half.

“about time” kicks off a handful of tracks that give up on dreaming of the past and begin to actually reckon with time. “Time keeps ticking on, it’s true / she’ll steal away our youth / but that’s how I’ll remember me and you,” sings Sarah on “about time,” another stellar song that is elevated by its collaboration with pianist Takahiro Izumikawa (who is inarguably a genius). Here, Sarah seizes control of her own memories… and then runs away with them (“let’s run away”).

Her past music has always centered around the theme of committed love, an interest that is further deepened with “isn’t it enough” and “handbook.” The former crept up on me over time (pun intended), and the latter evoked an instantaneous impression in its opening riff. There is plenty of jazz influence (“about time” in particular, as well as “once in a moon”) on what is ultimately a pop record, but Sarah has also been dipping her toes into R&B (including on her previous EP with “i’m lost”), and “handbook” is her strongest iteration of that. 

I must admit that I am terrified of death and always have been. I had the privilege of hearing Sarah perform “end credits”–a song that bargains with death until ultimately accepting it–in front of a live audience twice before it was released. Each time, the room was silent, Sarah had our full attention, and we were in tears at the end. It became the most highly anticipated song on the record, and one I was worried that production could ruin. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t. Producer Sam Ock shines in his arrangement of “end credits,” taking the movie metaphor and adding the sounds of old projectors running out of film. I don’t know that I will walk away from my own end credits with the acceptance that Sarah does, but boy do I believe her when she sings, “maybe all the tears that carved out these walls / are making room for joy when I’m finally home.” 

After we’re finished crying from “end credits,” Sarah is there to remind us that death is just the beginning. She ends the record with one of the more literal versions of a bookend: “epilogue” actually has the exact same lyrics as “prologue,” just with a different melody. In this version, the hard beats soften into jazzy piano chords, the dance turns into a sweet sway, and the standout line “if only we can go back in time” that once sounded so dreamy is now cut off into the solemn whisper, “if only we can.”

Sarah is not trying to trick anyone by asking us to listen to the same song a different way. In fact, she warns us in that song’s lyrics that she will “put the same song on replay,” and throughout the album she sings about time being circular rather than infinite. As much as this story is about time, however, it is also about perspective. The record’s thesis is clear in these two songs’ bridge that sings, “I know it’s fading / but turn back the pages / was it really all better? / or is it how I remember?” In the end, Sarah is right–memories, much like life itself, are what we make of them. And while Sarah knows that her music is fleeting and will become a memory to us all, I hope she also knows that it’s a memory we won’t soon forget.

Stream “how i remember” on Spotify now and see Sarah Kang perform the LP live at Rockwood Music Hall TODAY, October 15. She will also perform an unreleased song at our upcoming show, From Story to Song, to be announced very soon.

Sarah Kang. Photo by Sam Yi.