Casper Sage doesn’t want to romanticise the past anymore. On bits + pieces, the Nashville-based alt-R&B artist begins what he calls a quiet “war on nostalgia” not by denying memory, but by learning how to carry it differently.
Out today, the single, which comes along with a music video, is the first glimpse of his upcoming EP. Teased across socials in recent weeks, the track has already sparked a strong response, but its real weight lies beneath the surface. Built on shimmering synths and a slow-burn pulse that feels like light flickering across a disco ball, bits + pieces captures that suspended moment when you know something is ending, even as you’re still inside it. “Bits + pieces is about learning to let go,” Sage explains. “It came to me in the middle of an experience that I knew wasn’t going to last forever, but would change me for the rest of my life.”
If earlier releases hinted at a shift in perspective, bits + pieces makes it explicit. The song feels expansive and intimate at the same time, suspended between past and present without fully surrendering to either. There’s an 80s glow running through its textures, glossy but not polished to perfection, where synths shimmer against softened percussion, and guitars blur at the edges.
More than a standalone track, bits + pieces reads like an emotional statement. Sage isn’t interested in dramatising heartbreak; he’s tracing its afterimage. “As the fragments start to fade / Tell me where to find the faith to know it’s right,” he sings. Casper Sage may be confronting nostalgia, but he isn’t trying to rewrite it. He’s learning how to live alongside it, accepting that some memories stay, even when everything else moves on.