Born and raised in Roskilde with an English mother and Danish father, Sara Lewis Sørensen aka Sara Lew now lives in Copenhagen. Sara was trained as an electric guitarist at the Rhythmic Music conservatorium in Copenhagen. Throughout her career, Sara has always developed herself – and been a musical seeker – within jazz and improvisational music and through s.inger-songwriter, alternative rock and indie-folk-rock music.

Sara Lew’s new album “LOUD” is scheduled to come out on Cloudland Records in Autumn 2023.

Sara Lew’s new single ‘Shady Light’ is set to shine on the earth’s surface with its release on June 16^th, 2023, as a precursor to her upcoming album ‘LOUD’, which she is getting ready to release in autumn 2023.

‘Shady Light’ is the second single to come from the new album, following ‘Out of Nowhere’, which picked up a lot of playlist additions around the world, as well as and airplay on Amazing Radio and Louder Than War Radio and a video premiere with Vents Magazine.

‘Shady Light’ is a real indie ballad. It’s about standing together in a relationship, constantly learning from each other, and sharing with each other and continuing to do so even though life is rushing by with different goals and ambitions.

On the song, Sara explains, “It’s about standing together in a relationship even in a heavy storm when everything else is falling apart around you. It’s about daring to experiment and be vulnerable and stand on new land together. And though there still must be food on the table and the family must endure, to have the ability to seek refuge together in the very close moments, in love, in moments and special spaces of timeless being, where everything else is suspended.”

“I wrote the song after a long summer holiday where there was finally some peace, after a long and intense period.”, She adds.

Sara Lew’s upcoming album “LOUD” is all based around the development of life. It’s about when young people become adults and experience personal confrontations with the past, in which family stories of shame and taboo culture arise from the subconscious. It explores how to rein in anger and grief, to keep your head above water and be a role model for your own children when life all falls apart and how to protect love and togetherness when everyday life rolls on. Essentially, it’s an album about living in the present moment with love for life’s stories, memories, moments of happiness but also life’s unforeseen, manifold trip wires.

‘Shady Light’ takes more of a free-flowing chilled out atmospheric route to ‘Out Of Nowhere’, with intimate washed out moods that are perfect for thoughtful meditation. The music is played and arranged by Sara Lew (vocals and guitars), Anders Filipsen (keyboards/synth) and Jeppe Gram (drums). The track was recorded by, and in collaboration with, sound and studio engineers Troels Bech Jessen and Casper Nyvang Rask. It was produced by Sara Lew, and mixed & co-produced by Nis Bysted (Iceage & Choir of Young Believers), with mastering by Emil Thomsen.

1. Where would you say your love for music started?

At home when I was a child, my father played guitar, mostly blues. I learned a lot from him in the beginning and we did a lot of singing in the family. I started early playing the violin, then drums, then guitar and singing. At school we had a great music teacher and I played in different bands. I lived in Roskilde from the age of 12, so I’ve seen a lot of concerts every year at Roskilde Festival.

• Can you reflect on your childhood, who were your musical influences?

From my grandparents’ jazz, classical music, and church music. My British grandmother liked swing jazz, especially Frank Sinatra. My Danish grandparents worked at the church and therefore I spent a lot of time in church with them. From my parents I picked up the sound of jazz, blues and classical music, and all kinds of pop & rock.

Back to childhood, I remember albums I had myself, especially the ones by Suzanna Vega, Sinéad O’Connor and Tracy Chapman.

From the time of my youth, albums from The Sandmen to Radiohead and Soundgarden. Later in my journey as a musician I’ve been spending a lot of time on different genres and periods from alternative country to all jazz and experimental jazz, electronic noise, then more singer songwriter and alternative indie bands.

• Tell us a little about your culture and how it shows up in your music? 

I’ve always been influenced by my parents and their friends, their interests in people and life, politics and movements in society and their love for music and art overall, sort of an academic hippie home environment. My parents are divorced, and I moved to my father around the age of 12, he lived with my stepmom, in a kind of collective where there was a lot of gatherings with their friends, so a lively home. Also, a great impact has been that my mum is English, and I’ve been learning both from my Danish/Scandinavian family as well as my British family. Even though the countries and cultures can look and feel similar, there are also a lot of things that are very different.

I have used a lot of time on creative processes, improvisation, philosophy of mind; to stand in the open and be big ears to what the moment or the song calls for, both in music but also in life. Some of those processes I also recognise from how I have been raised, to be aware of your inner voice, how you feel and what you mean, so it feels like a natural way to work with music and music creation.

• Tell us about your new project “Out of Nowhere”, can you share the inspiration behind it? 

The song is written in deep feelings of powerlessness and anger when accepting what life brings you. Written after losing a person close to you to cancer.

• What can listeners expect from this project that is different from your previous work? 

The whole album is written during and after a powerful time in my life, with a lot of changing, recognition and crossing a deeper touch on past stories and present choices. I’ve been using a lot of time on the sound of the album, the structures, arrangements, the acoustic live played feel, the songs versus the more experimental moments. It’s simpler and minimalistic in terms of instrumentation and the melodies more jazz/bluesy/root in sound.  I have opened up to my past in jazz music and mixed it with the alternative rock sound. An important choice was to get the album sound and production as close to my demos as possible.

• Take us back to the beginning, what did the creative process entail for this project? 

I took a long time, over two years, just making a lot of sketches, text fragments, short melodies, and lines, before I needed to put them into actual songs. Also, I worked on different tunings and sounds for the guitar. And then I used a long time on choosing who to work with. I needed to be safe and certain in the process not hesitating anything.

• What can we expect from you next?

I have a new single coming up, in many ways opposite to this single (Out of Nowhere) which is wild and experimenting. The next song has a more song-writer indie/pop/folky sound.

• What is your definition of a Pretty Woman Who Hustles?

A pretty women who hustles is a girl who, full of passion, keeps on playing electric guitar on a music scene full of male players. With love for all she learned from jazz and improvisational music, she follows her inner voice and the song writing path. Hopefully she and other women musicians can influence other girls and empower them to be independent female musicians.

Watch the latest video to Shady Light

https://youtu.be/UlyhhRJ41iQ

Watch Out out of Nowhere