Teen Idle embraces the end of a romance through a ‘Saccharine’ anthem
New Jersey singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Sara Abdelbarry opens another chapter to her album’s memoir on Friday, September 1
New album ‘Nonfiction’ set for release by indie label H1 Massive on September 29
Asbury Park, N.J. [September 1, 2023] -- Summer's not over until Teen Idle says it is. A relationship, however, sometimes ends due to reasons beyond anyone’s control, despite best intentions at the start.
The musical project of New Jersey songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Sara Abdelbarry continues its forward march of singles with “Saccharine,” a buoyant and textured indie-pop track that serves as one final summer song. It keeps the casual season rolling as it hits the streams on Friday, September 1 via H1 Massive, the third and final single before the release of Teen Idle’s debut album Nonfiction on September 29.
The end-of-summer arrival of “Saccharine” aligns nicely with the track’s lyrical themes, which center around a relationship that’s starting to fade. “Saccharine” follows last month’s “Norway,” a song about being trapped in one’s hometown as an emerging adolescent and needing escape; and July’s “Birthday Cake,” where Abdelbarry watches a friend continue to make bad choices. Her latest offering glides with ease, surveying the fall of a doomed love while recalling contemporaries like Japanese Breakfast, HAIM, and Maggie Rogers.
It opens another chapter from a largely autobiographical album that carries forth Abdelbarry’s musical vision of “emotional rock with a cinematic tendency.” The singles from Nonfiction so far have landed Teen Idle on Spotify’s highly sought-after Fresh Finds Indie playlist; the blog pages of Big Takeover, Various Small Flames, and Turn Up The Volume; and the digital airwaves of DKFM, Eardrum Buzz, and several other independent and college stations and platforms around the world.
And that should come as no surprise, as each Nonfiction track from Teen Idle resides in its own village within a larger aural society. Where “Birthday Cake” was a re-introduction that served as a sort of slow-burn cathartic release, and “Norway” embodies a daydream escapism through crystallized indie rock, “Saccharine” is a gentle confrontation coated in a sugary pop and jazz mashup.
“‘Saccharine’ is a song with a title that’s both sincere and sarcastic at the same time,” Abdelbarry says. “Call it a breakup song if you will – every album needs one – but the song reflects on a romance and the realization that things can start off pretty sweet but quickly turn sour if both people don’t put in the work to make a relationship last. The song chronicles the end of a relationship and the feelings of hurt, disrespect, and anger you can experience while still remembering the joyful moments.”
Abdelbarry admits that “Saccharine” is “really just an anthem about finding yourself again after a breakup,” adding: “You wake up and realize you were feeling weighed down in the relationship anyway, hence lyrics like ‘I missed how summers taste so sweet’. ‘Saccharine’ is like writing a letter to your ex saying, ‘Listen, I really gave you my all, and while I do feel wronged in a lot of ways, I still wish you the best and hope you can learn to accept someone else’s love’.”
That final sentiment is one that Abdelbarry is exploring in her art, as well. Though she wrote, recorded, and produced Nonfiction entirely on her own and performed all its instrumentation aside from its drums (some performed by Samir Tawalare and others Danny Murray), “Saccharine” finds collaboration with New York City jazz saxophonist and Bjorkestra maestro Travis Sullivan, who through a magnetic sax performance brings a calm flair to the subtle yet dramatic track, enhancing its low-key dynamism.
“Sullivan recorded the sax on this song himself and completely elevated the part I composed to another level,” Abdelbarry admits. “He also recorded this improvised solo that you’ll hear in the song, which really tied the ending together in an insane way. I played in jazz band in college and still am a big jazz listener and appreciator, so just having someone who’s a master at his craft play on my song made me feel pretty honored.”
In addition to the saxophone, Abdelbarry also employed guitar, piano, organ sounds on a vintage Yamaha mini synth; MIDI sounds of an oud, an Arabic string instrument that’s a nod to her Egyptian-American heritage; a zither, a class of stringed instruments; and samples that she created herself. The result is something that sounds both intimately familiar and fascinatingly fresh. “Saccharine” was mixed by Evan Rudenjak and mastered by Kramer. The drums and piano were engineered by Connor Hanson; the saxophone engineered by Sullivan; and drums performed by Tawalare. Everything else was by Abdelbarry.
“The chord progression itself is so simple – it’s just two chords – that it leaves room to really just go wild with composition and arrangement,” she notes. “I had no specific plans for how I thought this song was going to sound, I kind of just ran with it… The more I play with arrangement and composition, the more I feel myself leaning in that direction and wanting to incorporate an orchestra and even more horn sections. The lyrics were written in one sitting. My feelings were still fresh when I came to write this song and I was feeling very emotionally charged. It felt like writing a very brutally honest letter.”
That continues to fuel the sentiment that Nonfiction reads a bit like a memoir, with each song opening a new chapter into Abdelbarry’s creative world. Nonfiction is Sara Abdelbarry – the creative, the person, the storyteller – in this moment, drawing from the world around her and filtering it out through her creative lens. She’s harnessed her life experience over the past few years, starting in 2018, enduring the global pandemic, and emerged out on the other side of the most challenging period of her life. It’s a moment in time, documented through her music, one story and sentiment at a time. And despite its downtrodden theme, “Saccharine” remains upbeat in nature. It doesn’t get more 2023 than that.
“Whereas a lot of the record is more relaxed and contemplative, this and one other song on the album really bring this upbeat, anthemic energy that feels like it seasons the record nicely,” she says. “Almost like a nice sprinkle of pepper or a hot sauce. A lot of the other songs were written when I felt stuck in a certain area of my life or was overcome by feelings of longing or indecision, but ‘Saccharine’ feels like a point where I finally decide to put all of that shit to rest. A realization that I’m not tolerating certain things anymore and being firm in what I want and need. Although it’s the opening track, if the album were a thesis, then this song would be the conclusion.”
So it stands that “Saccharine,” despite being about the end of a relationship, slots in on the track list as the start of her album. And despite arriving at the end of summer, when most flings flame out, its sound embodies the carefree and breezy emotions that define the height of it.
“It’s simply another page in the memoir that is the album,” Abdelbarry concludes. “I like to think of the record as an account of my feelings as I mature and really grow into adulthood, so this feels like a page in that journal. It really just documents another one of the experiences – love – that we all go through and deal with in different ways.”
Especially as the seasons, and relationships, are subject to change.
‘Saccharine’ production credits:
Written, recorded, and produced by Sara Abdelbarry
Mixed by Evan Rudenjak
Mastered by Kramer
Drums and piano engineered by Connor Hanson
Saxophone engineered and performed by Travis Sullivan
Drums performed by Samir Tawalare
All other instruments performed by Sara Abdelbarry
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Teen Idle’s ‘Nonfiction’ album bio:
Boston-based record label H1 Massive will release the full length album from Teen Idle. Hailing from New Jersey, Teen Idle – the moniker of Sara Abdelbarry – emerges from the pandemic with a largely autobiographical album.
Abdelbarry began playing guitar at age 9, and writing her own music at age 16. Meshing the heartfelt nature of influences like Fleetwood Mac with the grittiness and abrasiveness of grunge and the lovelorn tendency of ’60s crooners, Teen Idle makes emotional rock with a statement.
In 2020, Teen Idle’s first EP, Insomniac Dreams, was released on NYC indie label Green Witch Recordings. Premiering to acclaim early on, the album charted at #10 on the WRSU charts and remained in the station’s Top 30 for 5 weeks straight. Singles from the album also played on KEXP, KXLU, and DKFM. The album was also released on CD by Sunday Records, home of Slowdive’s earliest records.
“The record is largely autobiographical and is kind of what it would be like to look at my diary, if I actually had one,” Abdelbarry says. “From heartbroken ballads to a sardonic stab at HR people, to songs that peer into friends’ lives, this album tackles so many things that were happening in my life at the time.”
Abdelbarry adds: “I struggled with a lot of personal things throughout the writing of these songs, and the record is quite contemplative and has undertones of longing. I overcame the toughest thing I’ve ever been through… and I came out with a whole damn album.”
Says H1 Massive CEO John Eye: “Teen Idle’s new album Nonfiction is a warm and introspective journey through self discovery, empowerment, and longing.”
Singles “Birthday Cake,” “Norway” and “Saccharine” rolled out during the summer ahead of the full album drop on September 29, 2023. Based in New Jersey, Teen Idle has resumed live gigs, and Sara is open to interviews globally.
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Media praise for Teen Idle:
The music of Teen Idle can be heard and found on Asbury Park Press, BumbleBee Radio, Click Roll Boom, DKFM, Fade Away Radiate, If It’s Too Loud, Indie Scene, KEXP, KXLU, Mark Skin Radio, Mean Music Magazine, Moosic Entertainment, Outside Left, Patch, Records I Like, Rock & Roll Fables, Scene Noise, The Big Takeover, The Whole Kameese, Turn Up The Volume, V13, Various Small Flames, WRSU, WZBC, Your First Listen on KNNZ and Eardrum Buzz, ZenoFM, and other fine stations, shows, platforms, and outlets…
“‘Birthday Cake’ offers a window into the way Abdelbarry bends and builds upon personal stories to better explore their themes, showing how embellishment and exaggeration can better communicate a truth.” – Various Small Flames
“This slow-progressing musing appeals instantly with its rudimentary PJ Harvey-esque guitar play (check her brand-new album and you’ll hear what I mean) and Abdelbarry’s affectional voice (think Sharon Van Etten). ‘Birthday Cake’ has both a romantic and wistful sonority that captivates and moves. And halfway melancholic synths accentuate the overall ruminate timbre in a warm way. Intense and arresting accomplishment. Wow indeed.” – Turn Up The Volume
“‘Birthday Cake’ …is one of those songs that sounds completely unique, even if it’s made up of parts you’re intimately familiar with. The song has a great 90's slacker and bedroom indie feel mixed with the modern indie rock/folk/alt-pop sound of artists like Lucy Dacus and Phoebe Bridgers.” – If It’s Too Loud
“‘Birthday Cake’ builds and builds toward a subtle yet succinct culmination that chooses a tender approach over a thunderous one. When the drums from Samir Tawalare (Abdelbarry handled the rest of the instrumentation) eventually chime in, it’s a flutter rather than a fury that truly makes this debut ditty stand out.” – Rock & Roll Fables
“Abdelbarry looks to a diversity of influences when composing her music. From the guitar-heavy sound of more classic rock female artists to the more distorted sounds of the ’80s and ’90s rock to the musical traditionalism of her heritage, Abdelbarry is a very inspired young woman just scratching the surface of her creative abilities.” – V13
“The latest single ‘BirthdayCake’ from Teen Idle is rich with authenticity and honesty. Sara Abdelbarry has crafted an absolute gem… a melodic stroke of genius. We were literally hanging on every word and every note.” – The Whole Kameese
“Teen Idle perfectly encapsulates the feeling of a warm summer’s day in her recently released 6-song debut EP ‘Insomniac Dreams’, combining ethereal vocals with airy-sounding guitars and even an unexpected dose of organ synths. …In a genre that can too often risk similarity in songs, Teen Idle manages to give each track a distinguishable voice through the unique experimentation of melodies and instrumentation, with stellar results.” – Mean Muse Magazine
“‘Basement Songs’ expresses a warm, personal mood demanding attentive focus to the emotive lyrics told by Sara Abdelbarry’s soft-edged, tender vocals which extend between the rhythmic acoustic guitar strings.” – Scene Noise
“Teen Idle’s newest single ‘In The Morning’ is yet another example of her expert sonic craftsmanship. Continually, she writes these dream pop filled alternative rock masterpieces that are an absolute pleasure on the ears.” – Sonic Baptism/Dim Things
