Emerging indie artist, Sara Hastoglis, releases first single

Text by Emily Phillips @takenouthere

Cover Art by Madilyn Hastoglis

American singer/songwriter Sara Hastoglis, 22, has released her first single, Lovely on My Arm, from her home in Lynchburg, Virginia.

Hastoglis released the indie song on March 31, after uploading it to a distributer site at the beginning of the month.

Within just 1 week Lovely On My Arm saw upwards of 16,000 streams on Spotify, after having only been advertised on Instagram Stories by friends. Analytics show that many of her listeners are located in Sydney, AU, with streams otherwise mainly in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada.

Produced in the bedroom of her close friend Cole Loomis, 21, the young artist said, “It was so nice to make the song with someone that I’m friends with and that knows me; somewhere I was comfortable.”

Cover art for the song, adapted from an old photograph of the singer’s mother in the 80s and a photo of herself, was designed by Natalie Gross, 22, with text by Madilyn Hastoglis, 25.

The lyrics for Lovely on My Arm were inspired by a tattoo that the 2020 psychology graduate got while on a semester abroad in London, where, as the first lyric says, she literally had the word ‘lovely’ tattooed on her arm. She explained, “I put lovely on myself so that I don’t forget that I am lovely. And I think there’s parts of all of us that are ugly, but we’re still lovely and we still have beautiful things about us. So, I wrote the song to preach that to myself.”

Hastoglis hopes to release her next song by the end of May. Her sister-in-law Madilyn Hastoglis will be designing new cover art for the release.

Sara Hastoglis explained that due to the unforeseen circumstances that the global pandemic has presented, she is unsure when she will be able to begin working on her up and coming EP. “I can’t even go to Cole’s house to make the music,” she said. She hopes to do so this summer but admitted that, “it’s kind of up in the air right now.”

Lovely on My Arm is available on all streaming platforms.

@sarahastoglis