Sarah Julia
The title of folk pop duo Sarah Julia's debut album, The Fear That This Is Real, refers to the gray area of indecision. A change is needed, undoubtedly, but you don't yet dare cross the threshold. Standing on the precipice of the unknown, do you take a cautious step or leap forward?
Sarah and Julia, however anxiously, chose to jump. In the Fall of 2025, the sisters traveled from Amsterdam to Saugerties, New York, to record with Philip Weinrobe (Big Thief's Adrianne Lenker, Florist, Hand Habits). For six days, the sisters sat in a circle and recorded 12 songs with a group of near-strangers. The sisters had felt stuck in their heads during previous recording sessions, and Weinrobes' communal, headphones-off approach allowed them to channel deeper feelings from the gut. Sometimes, late at night, the group turned off all the lights and played in candlelight. It was different from anything the sisters had previously experienced. There was no time to mind any fear.
This was real.
Music was not the sisters' first artistic pursuit. Their mother had been shy as a child, so she enrolled her daughters in theater classes. Though Julia, the younger one, says she still turned out fairly shy, both sisters took to acting and performed in a variety of musicals, TV shows, and movies in their native Netherlands. "It took us quite a long time to figure out that we should make music together," says Sarah. "We were used to having a script-" "Telling other people's stories," agrees Julia, finishing her sister's sentence, as they both frequently do. "So it took us a while to find what we wanted to write about. That really changed when we both picked up the guitar."
Julia, especially, clicked with the guitar-Sarah is drawn to the "tiny instruments" like the mandolin. They shared a love of folk music, having internalized the Cat Stevens and Jim Croce played by their parents during their childhoods. Sarah Julia's debut EP, 2024's How Do We Go Back To Being Normal? channeled these gentle melodies into deeply personal songs that grappled with distrust and a changed family dynamic. The follow-up, 2025's Only Making It Worse, made space for the feelings that come later, when a wound is beginning to scar. The songwriting process was intimate and unblinking from the start. "It feels easy to be upfront when we write," Sarah says, noting that Dutch people are known for their bluntness. "And then as sisters, we're able to say everything to each other, that's our bond and our connection."
Sarah Julia's early songs were intentionally based around shared experiences. "That would mean that we would both feel it, and we want to make sure that we both feel equal in this project," explains Sarah. "Before writing the songs for this album, we knew it would be more of our own worlds." They discovered that seeing different sides of the same coin inspired empathy and constructive pushback; if one sister was struggling with a noncommittal partner, the other had been in the shoes of the person afraid of love. Even if vulnerability comes naturally to the sisters, they encourage each other to look beneath the surface-is there a greater truth that you're afraid to face?
The Fear That This Is Real is pockmarked with heartbreak, resignation, longing, hope, and pain. Sarah Julia approach each with self-awareness, gazing inward and outward with equal intensity. "Going, Going, Gone" depicts a scene of self-sabotage and avoids confrontation while also imploring "Move me." These feelings run deep."Guess I'm still feeling the guilt from that day," Sarah sings on "Bee Museum."
But just because human experiences and emotions can be textured doesn't make them easier to process or understand. Cozy though it may sound, "Therapist's Daughter" depicts a complicated dynamic: A friend is in a bad way, you are nothing but supportive; they get to a better place and distance themself. "You're a link to the past and all they've been through," says Julia. "So it's easier for them to shy away because you're stained." These are painful truths that can go beyond our control. Atop steady, stunning guitar, "She Won't Believe" laments "drifting away from someone you loved because the new person in their life is insecure about your presence," explains Julia. "Halloween/It felt ironic I was the one painted green/She threw a glass/She couldn't get that I don't want another chance."
That's the sort of memory and immovable opinion that might inspire a lot of ruminating and contemplation. Julia tends to begin composing guitar melodies when her mind is wandering, perhaps as Sarah is playing some Joni or Judee. Throughout the album, phrases recur like mantras. "Open up your eyes," "Everything's temporary," "What really matters?" The latter question is posed on the clear-eyed "Bigger Picture." Written after the passing of a family member, the song reflects a moment in which "nothing and everything made sense," says Sarah," and you're forced to zoom out and let go of the small things. The sisters trade lines with an intuitive ease, and their luminous harmonies cut through the darkness: "I don't know where I'm going, but I'll get there."
Sarah and Julia both describe the process of recording The Fear That This Is Real as grounding, giving them a glimpse of life's bigger picture. The result sounds like an unburdening, as if the ensemble and environment allowed this music to exhale, to indulge in contemplation. The arrangements unfurl into places both spacious and sparse, sonically and emotionally. Initially colored with frustration, sadness emerged when a song like "Touchdown" was given space to breathe in the studio. Full of meditative picking and twinkling synths, it's about wanting to be a stable and reliable person, about facing oneself fully: "I don't know if I can do it, but I promise that I'll try." The Fear That This Is Real offers a reassuring hand to step into the unknown, together.