NPR just featured a review of the Fight or Flight EP, including the song ‘Euphoria’ for streaming on their ‘Second Stage – Ones to Watch’ – Every weekday, discover the best in new, breakout and unsigned artists
I’m such an NPR geek. This is a big deal to me.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92521459
Sarah Sharp: ‘Euphoria’
By Conor McKay
“Euphoria”
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Sarah Sharp.
NPR.org, July 14, 2008 – Sarah Sharp’s soft spoken singing style and quiet instrumentations offer a living room, fireside closeness that keeps her away from the lounge-singer stereotypes of similarly jazz-influenced performers. With her new six-song EP, Fight or Flight, the singer-songwriter from Austin, Tex has created a lounge-pop sound that is intimate and inviting without seeming trite.
The EP’s lead track, the aptly-titled “Euphoria,” offers a comforting tranquility. Sharp’s beautiful, slightly twangy vocals float over a warm backdrop of far-off guitars and strings, with some clever rhyming and wordplay. Her diary-like lyrics about a half-sister named Penny sound as though she were confiding in the listener. The same is true of “Fight or Flight,” which opens with Sharp cooing “We don’t know how you’re still alive / I just called to apologize.”
“Hot as Hell” takes a surprising turn as a jazzy pop tune. Sharp sings whimsically, repeating “Is it me or is it hot as hell in here” again and again to a circus melody. The two-minute length is far too short for the track to truly get off the ground, but the song suggests Sharp’s ability to manage more upbeat sounds as well as her softer ouvre.
Fight or Flight comes as a pre-release EP to Sharp’s second full-length album of the same name, to be released later this year. The LP will include these six songs along with six more from the same two-day recording session. Sharp says the rest of the record follows in a similar singer-songwriter vein, with one true jazz track. “Jazz is actually a big part of my background and a common undercurrent in what I write” explains Sharp. “I’ve been playing live for 10 years. I started out as a jazz singer.”
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