Name: Sarah Filleur aka Sarasara
Occupation: Electronic singer- songwriter, producer, PhD in Experimental Philosophy of Art and Technology
Nationality: French
Recent release: Sarasara's new full-length album Elixir is out via One Little Independent.
Recommendations on the topic of sound: I feel like I talked a lot about nature. I am working on my first orchard plans, on the table right now, The Fruit Tree Handbook by Ben Pike. I think it’s a amazing book to learn about nature, cycles, trees, soil, observation, the importance of silence, creating space, the necessity of time, it’s wonderful.

If you enjoyed these thoughts by Sarasara and would like to stay up to date on her music, visit her official website. She is also on Instagram, and Facebook.

For a deeper dive, we recommend our earlier Sarasara interview.



When I listen to music, I see shapes, objects and colors. What happens in your body when you're listening ? Do you listen with your eyes open or closed?

It depends on the context and the type of music I suppose. But each type of sound carries a specific energy that awakens a specific emotion. So music can help raise your cortisol levels for instance, or also make you produce dopamine. It’s easy to verify by just watching films: music is a part of the frame and contributes to creating the atmosphere. Take The Exorcist theme song or the Shower scene in Hitchcock’s Psycho.



I listen with eyes closed if I need to focus on something specific when I write, or immerse myself in an experience, conjure a specific feeling.

But then, the experience can also be very visual, again in films or in a club. It’s kind of beautiful to see people share something, dance and the communion with the music.

How do listening with headphones and listening through a stereo system change your experience of sound and music?

I suppose listening with headphones makes the act more intimate and personal, you immerse yourself, you’re more sensitive to details, you hear things more accurately, lyrics can take a different meaning. Through stereo, or big sound systems, depending on the circumstances obviously, it’s cool too, it’s just a very different thing. Some music requires it.

I am quite sensitive to sound. I have low tolerance for sound pollution and overwhelming sounds, or when there’s a lot of chaos and different sounds at the same time. It’s good to have balance when it comes to sound you expose yourself to. In both cases, it needs to be good.

Tell me about some of the albums or artists that you love specifically for their sound, please.

Johnny Cash American IV: The Man Comes Around is an album I am listening to at the moment. It’s just raw, naked and simple and at the same time there is so much in it. So many emotions and feelings. He just has that kind of voice that just makes you feel things.



I am fascinated by this, some people, you can just listen to them speak for hours without ever getting bored. There just something about their voice, an agile way they use words, diction. The voice and way we speak tells so much about what’s going on inside. I supposed the words are also very important to me.

This record is a cover of the greatest songs ever written. I think words carry emotions and meaning as much as sound, if not more? That’s another debate. At least they last in our memory, in books, in songs, through history.

I think writing lyrics is my favorite part of making music. It’s intellectually and emotionally challenging. You must use both levers. An authentic song sounds different than a made up song. It’s easy to tell if you say something but you were never there. Energy never lies.

Do you experience strong emotional responses towards certain sounds ? If so, what kind of sounds are these and do you have an explanation about the reasons for these responses?

We all do, have you heard of Misophonia? It’s when you have a strong emotional reaction when you hear a specific sound. A negative reaction that is. For instance, when you hear someone chew like they have a grizzly bear in the mouth and you get super annoyed.

They say it’s a disorder, I think it’s more a question of self-awareness. Like everything, sound, smell, it’s great to have boundaries and some people are just not aware of themselves. You can easily feel intruded upon in your personal space.

The worse in my opinion, someone who would wear a lot of perfume and invades my personal olfactive space or someone who would have a loud phone call on the bus or in the street, I don’t want to hear about your life ...

There can be sounds which feel highly irritating to us and then there are others we could gladly listen to for hours. Do you have examples for either one or both of these?

To complete what I said above, sounds I hate, traffic, too many people, busy cities in general, that kind of landscape just drains my energy.

Sounds I could listen to forever? Birds, bees, forest sounds. Japanese people call it Shinrin Yoku (forest bathing). I was raised in the countryside, so it just feels natual to me, it feeds my soul. I need green and nature and calm. “For all the gold in the world“, as we say in French. I could never ever live in a big city like London or Paris. That is the literal idea of Hell to me, I hate it.

I think silence is very important too. We are over stimulated with words, sounds, music, there’s too much of everything, everywhere, all the time, and it is killing us. We are at the end of what the human brain can take. We are never hungry, we are never in silence, we’re never just with ourselves. Privacy and calm and thinking are luxuries nowdays.

I think ancient skills will be gold tomorrow, knowing nature cycles, building things with our hands, growing food. We have become too relient on technology, addicted, on all levels. I think we should teach self sufficiency in schools, not “how to sell yourself on Tik Tok“.

I am grateful that I am aware of this, I love being in solitude and being a hermit, stay away from that.

Are there everyday places, spaces, or devices which intrigue you by the way they sound? Which are these?

I love having my head under water, silence and sounds are very different there. Wether you’re in a bath or in the sea.

When I was living in Ibiza I was swimming and snorkeling every single day with the fishes, there are some truly fantastic spots and underwater cliffs to go observe sea life. It’s just a whole different world just next to us, beautiful.

Have you ever been in spaces with extreme sonic characteristics, such as anechoic chambers or caves? What was the experience like?

I have never been into an anechoic chamber, it sounds awful and scary. We’re not really meant to function without our environment. Cut an animal‘s whiskers and they can die. We need our surroundings and feedback to understand the world.

I usually stay away from caves unless there’s nice wine in it.

What are among your favourite spaces to record and play your music?

I am happy with my litte studio at the moment. It’s nothing fancy, just basic things and space. The most important thing for me to be able to write and record is to be able to feel on my own and isolated. I guess again, silence, physical and head space play a big role in the process.

Playing and singing is a different game. We have played very different spaces, venues, in different countries. We’re lucky that we have a great sound engineer that always makes us sound good. As long as I can hear myself sing and the guys play, it’s good. I am not difficult.

In the end, it doesn‘t really matter. For me, it’s always about being together with the band and have fun and laugh, discover new places, meet local people, the human experience. That’s why I’m doing this job really.

I haven’t been able to tour or travel so much lately because I have been dealing with illness for the last couple of years but I am getting back on my feet slowly so I am looking forward to see the guys again soon in France and pick up where we left off.

Do music and sound feel “material” to you? Does working with sound feel like you're sculpting or shaping something?

Yes absolutely 100%.

When you make music, you are quite literally shaping and carving sound, and melody and words. Songs are just sculptures or paintings in a different form.

How important is sound for our overall well-being and in how far do you feel the "acoustic health" of a society or environment is reflective of its overall health?

As I was saying before, there is so much sound and visual pollution everywhere. Information overload is a kind of noise. We are over stimulated 100% of the time. It is so important to be aware of what you expose yourself to. It is easy to see that people’s attention span is critically shrinking at a very disturbing pace.

We are forming a generation of hyper narcissistic idiots, slaves to instagram and tik tok. I think this social network is an abberation and should be banned and legislated against if humanity wants to survive. They prey on children and simple people, it should be illegal now that we have enough perspective on what it does to the human body and mind and to civilisation at large, speeding up the decline towards an inevitable end.

I think these technologies require that we learn very rapidely new skills such as data dignitiy, digital modesty and emotional intelligence for a healthier future. Actually France is the first country in the world to add compulsory emotional intelligence classes to the curriculum in 2024, in reaction to increasing social media bullying happening in schools and several teenagers comitting suicide.

I think in general we need to take a step back, disconnect and disengage from that kind of noise and co-dependency with technology, with the hope that it is not too late for regeneration. I don’t know if that will ever happen.

Sound, song, and rhythm are all around us, from animal noises to the waves of the ocean. What, if any, are some of the most moving experiences you've had with these non-human-made sounds?

You know it’s been known for millenia that listening to natural sounds is good for us. It helps decrease cortisol levels (the stress hormone) and strenghtens the immune system. It is easy to witness a sensation of calm and relaxation when you sit outdoors to listen to bird songs or the sea, or the wind, or trees or animals or anything.

Nietzsche said all his ideas came to him while walking in nature, Thoreau lived in a cabin. There is something magical that happens when we’re in nature, somenting that regenerates us, that sparks creativity, that makes us feel connected to something bigger than ourselves.

It’s called feeling the Sublime in philosophy.

Many animals communicate through sound. Based either on experience or intuition, do you feel as though interspecies communication is possible and important? Is there a creative element to it, would you say?  

Animals are intuitive and genuine, their intentions are pure, they only deceit for survival. They are loyal, they don’t know betrayal. Very different from some malicious and greedy humans I know ...

I have a dog, he has been my best friend for some years now. He is a little stray dog from Ibiza, he spent most of his life on the streets, on his own, surviving. Our paths crossed one day and we’ve been doing everything together since. He comes with me literally everywhere, just follows me, in class, on stage etc ... We just understand each other, without words. It’s all intuition and looks, and it’s beautiful. He is simply grateful for a safe place to sleep and food everyday. At the same time he is so smart, he can limp on purpose or look at you in a very special way, tricks he learned to survive, to get food from people, it’s unbelievable.

There’s something magical and spiritual about that relationship and the way we communicate that I can’t fully explain. I feel like the love is pure, unconditional and intuitive. There’s no guessing, no hidden agenda, it’s simple and easy.  He has been my best teacher so far, he made me change perspective on many different things, and people. There is creativity in that of course.

Tinnitus and developing hyperacusis are very real risks for anyone working with sound. Do you take precautions in this regard and if you're suffering from these or similar issues – how do you cope with them?

I used to be reckless with sound when I was younger, spending days in clubs without any kind of protection, or with super loud music in the headphones for extended periods of time.

Now I just naturally spend less time in those type of environments, and I more sensitive and aware of those things in general, I just try to be reasonable and moderate when it comes to volume and exposure. Nothing too special.

We can surround us with sound every second of the day. The great pianist Glenn Gould even considered this the ultimate delight. How do you see that yourself and what importance does silence hold?

I talked a little bit about this phenomenon earlier, but overload is not good. Like everything, it’s a matter of balance and moderation. Time, silence and space are always necessary in the mix of life.

They say, “silence is golden”. For me, it’s very true. I need silence in many situations, and I use it in my songs too. There’s nothing more powerful than a moment of silence, a little delay, it can carry a lot of energy and a whole range of emotions.  

You know in Yoga, Space is the 5th element, necessary for anything to thrive, it says it all.

Seth S. Horowitz called hearing the “universal sense” and emphasised that it was more precise and faster than any of our other senses, including vision. How would our world be different if we paid less attention to looks and listened more instead?

Interesting point. I think the world would be in a better place if we knew how to listen, probably. Listening is actually an active thing and it requires energy, concentration and empathy. It’s difficult.

It’s true that everything has become about the image, all about what it looks like. Le Simulacre in Baudrillard, we are there. It has to look good, healthy, beautiful blah blah. Authenticity, truth and essence are irrelevant. It’s transforming the world and the way we relate to each other. Human relationships are suffering from this, it creates alienation and loneliness. We don’t know how to express our needs or listen to the other’s needs. It often creates disaters.

There is definitely something to be learned again here, maybe linked to emotional intelligence again, more curiosity about human nature.