Sofia Zadar

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Sofia Zadar is the Alt-Pop project of Romanian queer musician Maria Sgarcitu (b. 1994).

Experimental Pop (a constant experimentation within the margins of pop sensibility) is a staple of Sofia Zadar’s sonic identity. While constantly shapeshifting their sound, they have continuously favoured complex vocal harmonics, spoken word delivery and a mix of organic textures with electronic sonic structures. Sofia Zadar’s aesthetic is rooted in the desires of local queer communities, while lyrically exploring posthumanist and utopian visions through a trauma-informed lens.

After having lived for 5 years in the UK (where they studied History of Art at University of Cambridge), then Berlin and Barcelona, Maria returned to Bucharest in 2018 and immediately started putting together this new act. They quickly rose to prominence in the Bucharest indie scene, headlining major music venues and events such as Control Club, Expirat Halele Carol, Fabrica, Bucharest Pride Festival (2021 & 2022), as well as local radio shows.

In 2020 they released their first homemade EP, Sunday Blue, and in August 2021 their second ~ Lyra ~ this time a collaborative production with indie music studio Cirkular. Sofia Zadar’s upcoming EP ~ Hictopia ~ explores a term coined by the artist (hic lat. = this, topos gr. = place) to explore the transformational thread that sows utopianism to the possibilities of the here-and-now. This is the central conceptual framework of the coming album, an experimental pop odyssey mixing a large array of vocal layering, somatic sonics (instrumentation acquired through the extensive processing of the artist’s body sounds), spoken word and atypical compositional structures. The EP will be released in May 2023 with a local tour of Romania’s biggest cities, following the release of two singles: RED (24.03.) and Nostos (April 2023).

A lot of Sofia Zadar’s aesthetic and performance delivery is inspired by Maria’s adjacent career as a theatre music composer and actress (having worked on more than a dozen theatre productions). This experience is tightly woven into Sofia Zadar’s theatrical stage performances and the constant preoccupation with set/costume design and art direction found in their music videos.

"What drives me to make music is the need for emancipatory imaginaries and togetherness. Beyond the anthropocene, our multispecies sensibilities connect sky to ground, past to future, human to non-human. I want to hold space for these intermeshing sensibilities in a way that centers the deep seated needs of my communities as well as our work to world new worlds." (Sofia Zadar)

 

Find Sofia Zadar here:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sofiazadar/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sofiazadar/