“The music of Teen Idle might be an almost entirely solo endeavour recorded in a New Jersey basement, but you’d never guess it from the sound.” So we wrote of Sara Abdelbarry’s project back in 2022, with single ‘Burning‘ highlighting how she “rejects the lo-fi aesthetics of many garage and bedroom acts for something more full-bodied.” The style allows Teen Idle to transplant the emotional immediacy of the bedroom pop movement into a richer, widescreen sound.
Followng ‘Burning’, Teen Idle is preparing to release new full-length Nonfiction soon via H1 Massive. It’s an album which promises to live up to its title with an autobiographical focus, each song like a page ripped from a journal, drawing on a variety of moods and styles to capture a full picture of the emotional terrain. Though that’s not to say everything is strictly true. New single, ‘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. “‘Birthday Cake’ isn’t specifically about anyone, but rather a caricature of a person,” Abdelbarry explains. “In some ways the song is autobiographical because the character it deals with is a hyperbolic version of people I’ve known.”
Photo by Samantha Abdelbarry