There’s a particular kind of dread that creeps in when something good is actually going well. The other shoe hasn’t dropped, the texts are still coming back, the love feels easy — and suddenly you’re convinced the universe is setting you up for a punchline. Brooklyn-based alt-pop singer-songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist Sabrina Song has built an entire EP around that exact feeling, and it’s out today.

Big Trick, Song’s new six-song collection, is the kind of release that sneaks up on you. Written and shaped in the quiet aftermath of her stirring 2024 debut album You Could Stay In One Spot and I’d Love You The Same, the project began with no plan and no expectations — just Song chasing songs until a theme started showing itself. What surfaced was disillusionment: the shifting goal posts of young adulthood, the constant low hum of self-improvement culture, and the strange vulnerability of letting yourself be happy anyway.

“After the release of my debut album, I began working on new music with no expectations or plans,” Song shares. “Those songs slowly started to take shape around a theme of disillusionment — which is what led me to the title of ‘Big Trick.’ Pulled from the title track of the EP, ‘Big Trick’ delves into the vulnerability of ugly feelings, letting yourself change your mind, and feeling the full spectrum of your emotions.”

The title track, produced by Lucas Wurman and Tom Brecker, is the thesis statement of the whole project. Over gentle guitar strums, Song paints tiny domestic vignettes — the small shifts in dynamic, the things left unsaid, the suspicion that a love this good has to be a setup. It’s the sound of someone surrendering to something tender while still bracing for impact.

“‘Big Trick’ captures the little moments of insecurity in a relationship, and what can happen when a love feels like it’s too good to be true — vignettes of small shifts in dynamic or things left unsaid,” Song says. “Making this song with Lucas and Tom was the tipping point for the whole project — the title track for a project that is largely about saying the quiet part out loud.”

Stream the EP here: https://open.spotify.com/search/Sabrina%20Song%20Big%20Trick

The rest of Big Trick earns its emotional whiplash honestly. “Play It Cool” pairs shimmering guitar riffs with a chorus that refuses to leave your head, while “Moving Target” splurges on dinner, commits to following dreams, and finds hope in the changing of seasons (Pitchfork plucked it for their Selects playlist). “LOCK” landed at the top of Spotify’s Created by Women editorial playlist, and the previously released “Background Actor” and brand-new “Broken Machine” — also out today with a lyric video — round out one of the most quietly devastating indie-pop EPs of the year.

Song has been building toward this moment for a while. She first caught wider attention with 2021’s “Thaw” after a Tiny Desk Contest submission landed her on Phoebe Bridgers’ radar and earned a feature in NPR’s Top Shelf series. Her 2022 sleeper hit “Strawberry” has since racked up over four million streams, NYLON has drawn comparisons to Blondshell and Olivia Rodrigo, and i-D called her single “Doors” the work of “a new great American artist.” Last fall she toured the U.S. and Canada supporting Carol Ades, and she’s shared stages with Del Water Gap, Sarah Kinsley, Hannah Jadagu, Pom Pom Squad, and more.

Next up: an EP release show at Brooklyn’s Union Pool on May 14, with support from Alana Markel and screenager. If her sold-out album release show at the same venue is any indication, you’ll want to grab a ticket before this one disappears.

Big Trick is out now. Don’t overthink it — press play, let it be good, and trust that this one isn’t a setup.