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SADIE
Better Angels(bloody knuckles)
Add date: 5.8.2026
Release date: 5.12.2026
Links:
Apple Music
Bandcamp
Instagram
Official Website
Spotify
Tidal
YouTube
Better Angels, the debut LP from Brooklyn-based producer and songwriter sadie, charts a sonic landscape in shimmering flux—an experimental pop album composed of textural synths, warped guitars, autotune earworms, and lush strings. Written during the time her ten-year relationship was ending, sadie’s Better Angels is both a break-up album and a confident reclamation of self at a time of great sea change, each track emerging as its own dream-like vision of what’s to come and what’s already slipping away.
Classically trained on the piano from the age of 5, sadie began using Ableton to experiment with hyper-pop inspired production in her last year of college. Departing from the “perfectly deconstructed dance-floor fare” (FADER) of her critically-acclaimed first EPs, Nowhere and Tides, Better Angels sees sadie finding her way back to live instruments––acoustic guitar, live drums, grand pianos––merging a confluence of acoustic and electronic sounds and influences. These acoustic elements, which sadie re-samples, warps, and distorts, lend an immediacy and vulnerability to the album, her textural production reflecting the surreal, dream-like quality of time and memory, and the marshy terrain of personal upheaval––letting echo and reverb erode the shoreline of sound, self, and genre.
“Wash,” the album’s opening track, begins with a subdued acoustic guitar beneath sadie’s intimate vocals––“Open up your eyes / I think you’re losing all your color / Wash away with every tide / Keep your head up / Pulled you under, ” she sings––evoking the erosive nature of time, and the ways in which the natural routines and cycles of life, or relationships, can erode one’s sense of vibrancy. “I wrote this song at a time where I was feeling stifled by routine, and numbed by the steadiness and security of certain aspects of my life…I felt that my senses had dulled and my life had lost its sharp edges.” Like the inevitable weight of a wave about to crash, the album’s opener crescendos, exploding with distorted drums and driving guitars. “I think I’ve had it up to here now, had it up to here” sadie repeats, a confident and defiant refusal to be pulled into the undertow.
“Salt,” featuring sadie’s close friend May Rio, serves as a north star for the album, lyrically and sonically. “I’m crossing at the salt line / I’m trying to be grateful now / need something else to live by ” sadie sings––the salt line at once summoning images of a tide line, or, perhaps, a line of salt, superstitiously sprinkled across a doorway’s threshold. “I imagined crossing that line and letting go of anger and bitterness, and regret. And I felt that I had left some people behind on the other side, people in my life who were unable to let those things go,” sadie says. The track, and the album as a whole, carves a clear channel through a mire of grief and personal growth, mirroring their wave-like nature: the changing tides, the tug of undertow, and the sense of return. The result is as confident as it is confessional, an album which triumphantly embraces the growth and transformation life requires of us all––a landscape shifting each time we turn to look.
I wrote this album during a sea change in my life—my 10 year relationship was ending, and I was about to turn 30. I was feeling adrift in what sort of music I wanted to make. I returned to recording acoustic instruments, which I hadn’t done since college. I quit my day job, and began coaching a high-school girls soccer team. Working with kids made me feel acutely aware of the passing of time, and forced a reckoning on what sort of life I wanted to lead. The album captures all these feelings from this time, and, most of all, the grief of losing the most significant relationship in my life.
Apple Music
Bandcamp
Official Website
Spotify
Tidal
YouTube
Better Angels, the debut LP from Brooklyn-based producer and songwriter sadie, charts a sonic landscape in shimmering flux—an experimental pop album composed of textural synths, warped guitars, autotune earworms, and lush strings. Written during the time her ten-year relationship was ending, sadie’s Better Angels is both a break-up album and a confident reclamation of self at a time of great sea change, each track emerging as its own dream-like vision of what’s to come and what’s already slipping away.
Classically trained on the piano from the age of 5, sadie began using Ableton to experiment with hyper-pop inspired production in her last year of college. Departing from the “perfectly deconstructed dance-floor fare” (FADER) of her critically-acclaimed first EPs, Nowhere and Tides, Better Angels sees sadie finding her way back to live instruments––acoustic guitar, live drums, grand pianos––merging a confluence of acoustic and electronic sounds and influences. These acoustic elements, which sadie re-samples, warps, and distorts, lend an immediacy and vulnerability to the album, her textural production reflecting the surreal, dream-like quality of time and memory, and the marshy terrain of personal upheaval––letting echo and reverb erode the shoreline of sound, self, and genre.
“Wash,” the album’s opening track, begins with a subdued acoustic guitar beneath sadie’s intimate vocals––“Open up your eyes / I think you’re losing all your color / Wash away with every tide / Keep your head up / Pulled you under, ” she sings––evoking the erosive nature of time, and the ways in which the natural routines and cycles of life, or relationships, can erode one’s sense of vibrancy. “I wrote this song at a time where I was feeling stifled by routine, and numbed by the steadiness and security of certain aspects of my life…I felt that my senses had dulled and my life had lost its sharp edges.” Like the inevitable weight of a wave about to crash, the album’s opener crescendos, exploding with distorted drums and driving guitars. “I think I’ve had it up to here now, had it up to here” sadie repeats, a confident and defiant refusal to be pulled into the undertow.
“Salt,” featuring sadie’s close friend May Rio, serves as a north star for the album, lyrically and sonically. “I’m crossing at the salt line / I’m trying to be grateful now / need something else to live by ” sadie sings––the salt line at once summoning images of a tide line, or, perhaps, a line of salt, superstitiously sprinkled across a doorway’s threshold. “I imagined crossing that line and letting go of anger and bitterness, and regret. And I felt that I had left some people behind on the other side, people in my life who were unable to let those things go,” sadie says. The track, and the album as a whole, carves a clear channel through a mire of grief and personal growth, mirroring their wave-like nature: the changing tides, the tug of undertow, and the sense of return. The result is as confident as it is confessional, an album which triumphantly embraces the growth and transformation life requires of us all––a landscape shifting each time we turn to look.
I wrote this album during a sea change in my life—my 10 year relationship was ending, and I was about to turn 30. I was feeling adrift in what sort of music I wanted to make. I returned to recording acoustic instruments, which I hadn’t done since college. I quit my day job, and began coaching a high-school girls soccer team. Working with kids made me feel acutely aware of the passing of time, and forced a reckoning on what sort of life I wanted to lead. The album captures all these feelings from this time, and, most of all, the grief of losing the most significant relationship in my life.