St. South Announces New EP ‘BIG SADS’ Out September 20; Shares Title Track

With every new release, Perth-born, now Sydney-based singer-songwriter St. South (she/they) showcases an innate ability to reach into your soul and, through sharing her own experiences, tell you exactly the things you’ve needed to hear. Her music is a remarkable blend of poignant, honest songwriting carried by a lo-fi indie-pop melody, capturing personal vulnerabilities – as if read straight from her diary – and translating them into moments of deep connection. Today, St. South announces the next chapter, her stirring and emotive new EP, BIG SADS. The record, featuring recent singles “Better Days” and “Didn’t Need You”, alongside today’s new release, the EP’s title track, will be out September 20 via Nettwerk Music Group. 

Following the release of her debut full-length album, 2020’s Get Well Soon, BIG SADS finds St. South at a significant personal crossroads. After her father passed away in September 2020, the devastation nearly led to creative paralysis. Writing no longer satisfied – she was feeling too much at once. 

Six months later, she sat down to write in her home studio. The result, BIG SADS, is a delicately produced collection of alt-indie-pop tracks that mine the infinite shades of loss, love, grief, surviving, and – ultimately – hope for better days. 

Of the EP, St. South says, “BIG SADS is about a lot of things, but mostly it’s about feeling some big feelings. Love, grief, depression, anxiety, heartache, and heart-healing. I’m learning that the pain that comes from losing someone is a testament to how much you love them. When my dad died the world was still in lockdown, and I had this hopeful thought that I would spend the next year at my piano, processing the grief in a productive way. When in reality, grief turned into depression, leaving me feeling stuck and incapable of even basic self-care. The thought of writing about grief felt far too overwhelming when I was living and breathing it every day, and sitting at my piano started to give me so much anxiety. That’s why this EP is so special to me; because of how impossible it felt to start, let alone finish. When I hear it now, mixed and mastered, I can’t believe that it’s done. I can’t believe that I did that, amidst the biggest sads of my life.” 

WATCH & SHARE: ST. SOUTH “BIG SADS”:

Today, St. South shares the EP’s title track and opening moment. While it might be the record’s introduction – tiptoeing in with whispered vocals, a looping drumbeat, and an affecting piano melody – it was the final track written for the record. 

“I’d been in a bit of a slump since finishing the previous four tracks. They were done, and I was really happy with them. But I still needed to write one more song, which felt impossible while I was so depressed. I was sitting at my piano one afternoon, feeling pretty defeated, and I was like, ‘I’m so sick of trying’. Then I just sang the line: ‘I’ve been feeling big sads.’ And I thought, ‘You know what, maybe I just need to write about that,’” St. South expands. 

“The last three years were full of some very big sads, and this is the song I wish I’d heard in the early months of grieving my dad. It’s a song about me, for me, and the things I struggle with when grieving. It’s about longing for a normal childhood summer, stretched out in the backseat of the car, dozing after a hot and heavy beach day, my parents in the front, telling me to rest my eyes. Writing this song felt like telling myself that it’s okay, and that I can have those things again. It’s about surrendering to sadness, and resting when you need to…And, it’s about my dad; ‘I remember everything that you ever said to me’.”  

Returning with her first new music in four years with the liberating “Didn’t Need You” in February, followed by April’s “Better Days”, and today’s title track, BIG SADS is as much a celebration of life as it is a reflection on grief. Though working through BIG SADS was like pushing a boulder up a hill, St. South has now reached the apex, and the view looks beautiful.