The music that first inspired Zaho De Sagazan: “I still get chills from it”
David Bowie was a consummate artist. He simply found it natural. “Intelligence? That’s not necessary in what I do,” he once said. “What I do has nothing to do with intelligence.” For him, art was simply a shoe that fit. Then he ran with it. The shoe fits Zaho De Sagazan like a glove, and that’s saying something because she’s usually barefoot. She, too, was a born artist; you can tell from the way she carries herself.
In fact, she comes from a family of artists. They all probably hold themselves with an air of coolness—a poise of considered performance. This was apparent when she confidently honoured Greta Gerwig at Cannes earlier this month with a cover of ‘Modern Love’ by the aforementioned Starman. The song was yet another glass slipper that Zaho De Sagazan slid into with confidence.
Most of her work, in fact, has the aura of confidently slipping into different muses. In the electric mix, you can almost hear her family history—all the art the young French musician has been exposed to, blurring into one very singular miscellany. This was apparent on her 2023 debut album, La Symphonie des éclairs, an odd baroque blend of waltzing chansonnier melodies laid over classical minimalist piano compositions, wailing ambient synth textures, and pulsing beats.
This singular blend of dreamily reimagining Jacques Brel as a Darksynth star took Zaho De Sagazan from a relative unknown uploading covers to Instagram to a roaring idol of coolness, serenading stars in stunning style at Cannes. However, to say this rise is unexpected might be a bit off—the sudden success might be a shock, but it seems she always thought she might be an artist at heart.
This perhaps first dawned on her when she watched the 2004 film Les Choristes. “We loved musicals at home, and our parents let us express ourselves. It was a bit of a musical dictatorship: we listened to Peau d’âne, Mozart l’opéra rock and Romeo and Juliette on a loop,” she explains.
“But the first time I felt real emotion when I felt the music pierce me was when I heard ‘Summertime’ by Janis Joplin,” she told Mastermind Paris. “I was at a show at my mother’s school when I was eight years old. The first guitar notes hit me, then Janis’s voice. It was physical. I still get chills from it.” This roaring early impact is indicative of the bold, stirring style that she now exhibits herself; she may croon rather than crow like Joplin, but the stretch for exultancy of some description is no less apparent.
Her work is nuanced and serene, but there is a buzzing intensity behind it: a bee perching amid the pollen of a geranium might be as pastoral a spring scene as is possible to see, but it’s also a high-octane raid of the sweetest nectar. This simmering euphoria is inspired by another of her heroes, Jacques Brel. “I watched the video of him vibrating and sweating 50 times in a row in the same day, and I realised that a song could also be told, played and experienced,” she said of Ces gens-là. “It opened up new horizons for me.”
She’s been wearing that shoe ever since, as can be seen in the astounding performance of ‘Modern Love’.
