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Artist and Composer Sirintip Releases new EP White Lilies, an Intimate Portrait of Self-Discovery and Healing

New York-based singer, composer, and producer Sirintip releases White Lilies, an intimate collection of original songs that engage with grief through place and memory. Out Oct. 30, the 6-track EP reveals her most personal songwriting to date. Raised in Thailand by her recently departed father, Sirintip entered adolescence in Sweden before traveling to the United States to pursue her career. Through her multilingual identity, she’s learned to communicate in countless ways, with the understanding that expression is expression, and deeply human, no matter the context. White Lilies is a transmission of vulnerability through the language of music.

“Growing up, I learned three different ways to communicate through language,” she says. “Then I also had music, which allowed me to express myself beyond words. They're all just different ways of communicating. The medium doesn't really matter to me. Whether I'm writing a song or translating science, I'm trying to understand and tell stories about the same thing: the human experience. For this record, nature comforts me with the understanding that everything is cyclical, and so is life.” Commissioned by Greenwich House Music School, White Lilies extends its expression even further, moving from musical gesture to sense-memory experience. The release includes biodegradable vinyl pressings; music videos for “Lotus” and the album title track, filmed on location in Thailand; Sirintip’s original photography; album artwork from Nitcha Tothong; and forthcoming scent activations.

The videos, in particular, hold deep meaning for Sirintip that ripples through the record. Prompted by a last-minute decision to preserve the memories it held, she filmed “White Lilies” at her childhood home in Bangkok one day before she handed over the keys to its new owners. “I’m grateful we had the opportunity to do it,” she says.

For nearly a decade, Sirintip has explored the intersections of music, science, nature, and human connection, using interdisciplinary collaboration to explore life’s questions through emotionally resonant experiences. This has led to her delivering her self-released tour de force, Carbon (2022), which landed a full-page spread and a music video premiere in HuffPost, and to her multiyear project, Mycelium, set for release in 2027, an interdisciplinary gesture for large ensemble that continues to receive international praise. On the air in 2018, WNYC Soundcheck legend John Schaefer told Sirintip she delivers “catchy left-of-center pop songs that, upon closer inspection, reflect a love for electronic music and jazz.”

But rather than bring external research and scientific inquiry to this release, Sirintip turns inward. Each song captures the breadth of her creativity. She bonds pop-song forms with electronic textures, fresh grooves, and elevated, often dissonant harmonies. But they emerged organically, almost unconsciously. White Lilies helps process the loss of her father and her childhood home in Bangkok, while connecting with listeners on the universality of memory and identity. “I was trying to write very intuitively,” she says.

For White Lilies, Sirintip assembles a collective of artists whose versatility serves her vision. The album features Kengchakaj on piano and effects, Nolan Byrd on drums, special guest Ben Wendel on tenor saxophone and effects, and Sirintip on vocals, vocal effects, programming, and various production elements. Desiring an open-minded “pop perspective” for the album’s production, she invited Elliot Moss to serve alongside her as co-producer. “I’m really, really, really happy with the production,” she says.

In a dreamlike texture and lyricism, “Motherland” documents the moments in Sirintip’s life when she had to say goodbye, using the fjords on Sweden's west coast as a metaphor. “The song is about the imagery of people sailing away from a dock and up a fjord. And there’s this imaginary word I came up with, “silverline”, which is an invisible phone line that I can call up to where they are in heaven, so that I can always connect with them even though they’re far away.” The song reaches its emotional climax during Wendel’s solo. “It really encapsulates what the whole record is about.”

“Lotus” references the famous quotation from Thích Nhất Hạnh: “No mud, no lotus.” With a vintage backbeat and a breathy groove that, together, mimic a heart beating, “Lotus” honors complicated parent-child relationships and, at the same time, celebrates breaking the cycle of trauma. Named for the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery using lacquer mixed with powdered gold, “Kintsugi” flexes the freshness of Sirintip’s sound. Her contemporary aesthetic indulges vibrant textural layers and surprising movement on the bridge. A haunting piano solo from Kengchakaj sets “Amygdala” adrift before guiding it home. “The imagery of the song is a storm in our minds, and me trusting that the storm will pass and I will be okay because I built a strong boat,” says Sirintip.

A veritable anthem in 6, the album’s title track transmits a traditional pop harmony with the artist’s signature edgy modulation and movement. Featured in the music video for “White Lilies,” Sirintip’s childhood home symbolizes the complexities of grief: “When I went through the house to clear out everything, it was like a time capsule. It was the same curtains I grew up with; it was the same clock; it was the same kitchen table. It was very beautiful, but it was also sad.”

Concluding on an eternal question, White Lilies ultimately invites listeners to reflect on those they’ve loved and lost on: “Where Do Souls Go?”

“I've always written from the heart. But for this release, I allowed myself to write the way I did when I was 12. No scientific inquiry. No conceptual framework. Just feelings. And out came these incredibly honest and vulnerable songs.”