Music
The best kept secret in music
Press
" Her voice is clear and adaptable, from breathy near-chanson to bright pop to hints of jazz... taking from pop something that the griot tradition foregoes: introspection" - New York Times
" Vibrant and assured... Sarr always sounds as if she knows exactly who and where she is .... Sarr's mezzo-soprano was beautiful" - The Washington Post
" Accompanied simply by Patrice Larose's delicate guitar, with beguiling sweetness Julia Sarr bowls you over... perfect singer with exemplary timbre and presence." - Le Monde ( paris)
" The voice and charisma of a star" - Liberation
" The first fascinating CD of 2006: Set Luna.... It's Sarr's voice a cool breeze on " Namana", a clarion coo on "Waruma" a sexy sway on "Guem" that truly separates the ballad-based Set Luna from the world music pack"
- Philadelphia Inquirer
" Sarr has a lovely expressive voice and there seems to be no end to the subtlety of her interpretative gift... shades of Al-Andalus, wolof tradition, jazz and Euro ballads are drawn into these tracks and by some alchemy, become beautiful music." - Billboard
" Sarr's soulful voice and purrs, matching the intensity of Larose's playing." - Village voice
" Julia Sarr and Patrice Larose have a wholly unique sound. It's graceful and elegant and full of unexpected twists and turns." - The New Yorker
" Two artists are allowing themselves to follow their muses... Set Luna's twelve spare pieces, including two instrumentals by Larose are impossible to categorize. They are certainly far from flamenco or any variety of Senegalese traditional music. This is for lack of a better term, contemporary European songwritting... . in short, music that must be taken on its own terms." - Afropop worldwide
"A simmering album of subtle textures and futuristic connotations, Set Luna contains equal parts duende, that ineffable spirit at the heart of flamenco and a distinct Dakar-rooted sound with an extremely promising future." - Carnegie Hall Programm Notes: Youssou N'Dour presents the fresh face of African music"
Discography
One album. Streaming on www.sunnyside/no/universal.jazz and www.noformat.net
Photos
Feeling a bit camera shy
Bio
One of the most original vocal artists to emerge from West Africa in decades, mezzo soprano Julia Sarr honed her reputation as an A-list backing vocalist in Paris for luminaries such as Jean-Jacques Goldmann, Michel Fugain, Julio Iglesias, MC Solaar, and Youssou N’Dour, having launched it all with live gigs with Fela Kuti’s rhythmic alter ego, the legendary Nigerian Afrobeat drummer Tony Allen, and with Congolese singer Lokua Kanza. Her a cappella solos graced Jean-Claude Petit’s score for the film Lumumba.
Nurturing her solo aspirations and songwriting quietly for years, Sarr has found in Patrice Larose, the flamenco-influenced guitarist, just the right partner, as French critic Stéphane Ollivier has said, “with whom to merge haunting individualities, stories, and traditions.” For all of the richness of the respective traditions in which Sarr and Larose find their anchors, the Sarr-Larose duo is more a flowing conversation between individuals than a studied hybrid of styles, and it is precisely this conversational quality which elevates the partnership far above the murky waters of any contrived encounter of musical forms.
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