Over the last few years Zaho De Sagazan has become one of the fastest rising stars in French music. With a string of award wins last year, more nominations in the bag and her latest release La symphonie des éclairs (Le dernier des voyages), an expanded international edition of her breakthrough debut album La symphonie des eclairs, she is quickly becoming an unparalleled force.
Throw in covers on ELLE, Bazaar, Rolling Stone France, Vanity Fair and more and a performance at the closing ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games and you start to get a picture of just how big she is becoming.
And at Gorilla during a headline UK and Ireland tour Zaho De Sagazan shows exactly why she is hitting such heady heights. And more … that there are no signs of things slowing down.
After an outstanding opening from Charlie Motto, filled with experimental dance pop, Zaho De Sagazan enters.
She takes to a seat behind the keys. There’s darkness and just Zaho De Sagazan in white light. It’s already a dramatic opening and she hasn’t even uttered a word or played a note. It sets the scene for what will be a hugely dramatical and emotional set and is the first indication of the way the lighting is used to such good effect throughout.
The crowd are cheering loudly at her entrance but quickly change to an attentive silence as she opens up. They hang on every lyric, every note, every movement … as they will for the entire evening.
What follows is more than just a musical set, it’s a experience, an emotion, a drama. It’s typified by her ending to opener La Fontaine de sang as she stands and moves, almost emotionless, to a prop telephone, picking it up to reveal a dial tone but no answer. This sense of the dramatic and the set being a performance of more than just music permeates throughout the set. In fact as she moves through the setlist, there is often an almost soundtrack feel to it.
The dramatic feel is something Zaho De Sagazan acknowledges very early on. “The next song is a little less dramatic” she comments ahead of Le dernier des voyages, “but the drama will be back because I am dramatic! I dream and I am dramatic!” she adds.
The set is filled with variety. From sparse romanticism through to the dark and dramatic filled with deep chords and bass, she mixes things up. The pace often changes, with the enthusiastic crowd one minute hypnotized and the next dancing away.
There’s electronica, synths, slowed down mellow vibes, thunderclap percussion, stripped back ballads. It’s a masterclass in mixing things up, pulling in from a range of genres and keeping the fans hooked – and the eager crowd love it.
They laugh with her at her self-depreciating humour and anecdotes; they listen attentively to every word; they dance when she declares it’s time to; they lap up the drama but more than anything they listen to every note, every lyric, every chord and watch one of the best performances they will see for a long time.
