Auckland singer-songwriter Sabreen has released her sophomore EP, Forget Me When I’m Gone, a six-track collection exploring memory, mortality, growing up and the stories we tell ourselves to make sense of being alive.
At the centre of the project is a fear Sabreen knows all too well: being forgotten.
Across Forget Me When I’m Gone, Sabreen explores the desire to leave something behind, whether through relationships, art, memories or the stories we create around our own lives. While deeply personal, the EP is grounded in something much more universal: the desire to be remembered for who we were, what we created and the life we lived.
“I think, at the root of this constant stream of humanity, is the same force that drove the creation of this body of work,” said Sabreen. “All I see in this kaleidoscope of letters penned on screens, poems shot into the stratosphere, photographs kept in albums and flowers pressed into pages are all of us trying to leave some mark, some trace, of our existence before we go.”
The EP’s leading single, ‘Nina’, brings that idea to life through the fictional story of two best friends whose lives take very different paths. One becomes famous almost overnight, while the other remains in their hometown, watching from the sidelines as her friend is propelled into the spotlight.
Through their story, Sabreen examines the strange and often brutal relationship between fame and the internet, where women can be lifted up, mythologised and celebrated before being torn down just as quickly.
Told from the perspective of the friend left behind, ‘Nina’ also considers what it means to watch someone you love become a public figure, and what happens to the people closest to them when their lives are suddenly no longer entirely their own.
The accompanying music video was filmed across Dublin and Vienna earlier this year, bringing Sabreen’s fictional world of friendship, fame and memory to life.
‘Nina’ follows previously released singles ‘Therapy’ and ‘Land Mines’, which reveal two very different sides of Sabreen’s songwriting.
‘Therapy’ is a sharp, 2000s-inspired pop-rock anthem about the inner chaos of being a woman in your twenties, finding humour in the mess and recognising that you are rarely as alone in your feelings as you might think.
‘Land Mines’, meanwhile, turns inward. The track offers a more vulnerable counterpart to ‘Therapy’, exploring the experience of living with PTSD and depression and the exhaustion of constantly bracing for impact.
Together, the songs reflect the contradictions at the heart of Forget Me When I’m Gone. The EP moves between funny and sad, nostalgic and present, and deeply personal storytelling that continues to look outward at the world around it.
Despite its title, Sabreen admitted the EP was born from a crippling fear of being forgotten. Rather than treating that fear entirely with solemnity, she has filled the project with nostalgic live instrumentation and moments of warmth, finding joy even within some of its saddest stories.
“This EP is my love letter to the stories we tell ourselves and others that mythologise the mundane, ornament the ordinary, and immortalise what is inherently mortal,” she said. “It was a joy to fill these songs with niche and nostalgic live instruments, and every song, no matter how sad, brings a smile to my face. Because even if no one else does, I remember.”
At 24, Sabreen continues to establish herself among New Zealand’s emerging singer-songwriters. A singer, songwriter and author, her work draws on the storytelling of artists including Hozier, Paris Paloma and The Beths, while her Bangladeshi and Muslim identity remains an important part of her creative world.
With Forget Me When I’m Gone, Sabreen takes another step forward in her songwriting, using six songs to consider the stories we leave behind, the people we become and the small ways we attempt to make ourselves permanent.
