Many creative partnerships have roots in common childhood goals and experiences, but few are as deep-seated as that of Sarah Julia. After years spent acting across musicals, television series, and movies, sisters Sarah and Julia embarked on a joint career as co-songwriters, participating in a TV contest that catapulted their lyrical career to new heights. However, after family hardships, intense changes, and shared reflections on growing up and loss, the duo found themselves in sync more than ever before — and knew it was time to tell their own stories.

“Our mom used to be very shy as a kid and didn’t want us to be the same, so she enrolled us in theatre classes,” they share. “From there, we spent a lot of time in the theatre as kids until we eventually outgrew child roles. It wasn’t until then we realised we could create together. We used to play keyboard and piano, but it felt more like an obligation. It wasn’t until our teenage years when we started playing guitar together that things finally clicked, and we began to start writing our own music. We tried many things back then, and after a change in our family dynamics, it all fell into place. Writing about that experience brought us closer together and helped us find our own sound and voice as well.”

Now, together with Jasper Maekelberg, Sarah Julia have found their individualised indie-folk sound, full of acoustic guitars, luscious harmonies, and vulnerable lyricism. In a balance of softness and darkness, their music weaves in and out of childhood and adulthood, highlighting the complicated nature of growing up and leaving behind a sense of security for the heaviness of the unknown. With the official unveiling of their debut EP, How Do We Go Back To Being Normal?, they share a glimpse into three years of grief and growth: “The EP is about becoming independent. Dealing with unexpected changes and realising that you can draw much more from yourself to move forward, instead of wishing for the other person to change. It’s also about nostalgia for a time when everything seemed simple on the surface and redefining the relationship between us and our parents.”

Here, Sarah Julia takes us track by track through the EP…

“The Cairngorms are a place our dad used to take us hiking. It holds a memory of a version of him we try to hold on to. While writing the songs, we felt a new phase unfolding, where forgiveness led the way. When you find yourself stuck in repetitive thoughts at home, the Cairngorms manage to drown them out.”

“It’s about a man who’s very self-centered and doesn’t think about the consequences of his actions. No matter how many times you try to explain it, that person won’t understand.

It’s about finding out that the only way to move forward is to find peace within yourself instead of hoping for the other person to change.”

“The song is inspired by the Japanese tale of Princess Kaguya, specifically the image of burning letters on top of Mount Fuji. The story revolves around Princess Kaguya, who came from the moon and rejected a marriage proposal from the emperor. One night, during the full moon, Kaguya was swallowed by a bright light, and the moon people took her back home. The emperor, still in love, wrote her a letter and instructed an army of men to carry his words to the summit of Mount Fuji, the place that, according to the ancient Japanese belief, was closest to the moon. When the soldiers reached the summit, they burned the letter in the hope that the smoke would rise to the moon, so Kaguya could read the emperor’s words.

The song is about losing someone and wondering if that person will come back to you. It’s about wallowing in the feeling of not knowing and longing for someone’s return. 

Julia was playing the guitar and mumbling words, the first line of the song was born out of her mumbles. Very soon Sarah remembered the story she read about princess Kaguya and from there the story told itself.”

“Is about losing faith in the people very close to you and losing faith in love. We wrote it during Covid when some of our friends got into conspiracy theories and that sparked the idea of the song. Because they’re our friends we wanted to understand them better, and the feeling of not trusting anyone and wanting to believe that everything that happens has a deeper meaning and reason, resonated with us. The song is about believing one thing and finding out it’s actually different from what you were told as a child.”