At the centre of the EP is a fear Sabreen knows all too well: being forgotten.
Across its six tracks, Forget Me When I’m Gone explores the desire to leave something behind, whether through relationships, art, memories or the stories we create around our own lives. It is a deeply personal project, but one grounded in a feeling Sabreen believes is 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,” says 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.
The song explores the strange, often brutal relationship between fame and the internet – how quickly women can be lifted up, mythologised and celebrated, only to be torn down just as quickly. Told from the perspective of the friend left behind, ‘Nina’ also asks what it feels like 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 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 the EP’s previously released singles ‘Therapy’ and ‘Land Mines’, which offer 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 think. ‘Land Mines’ turns inward, offering a more vulnerable counterpart to ‘Therapy’ and 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 – funny and sad, nostalgic and present, deeply personal while still looking outward at the world around it.
Despite its title, Sabreen admits that the EP was born from a crippling fear of being forgotten. Rather than treating that fear with solemnity, Sabreen has filled the EP with nostalgic live instrumentation and moments of warmth, creating a project that finds joy in even 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 says. “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 as one of New Zealand’s distinctive 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.
Forget Me When I’m Gone marks a significant step forward for Sabreen – a project about the stories we leave behind, the people we become and the small ways we try to make ourselves permanent.
