Asara – 028 Crises
Asara is the solo project of Paris-based French-Moroccan artist Sarah Pitet, a multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, composer, and video director whose debut album 028 Crises is out today via French label Géographie.
After spending four years as a member of Dog Park, moving fluidly between guitar, bass, keyboards, and vocals, she now steps into a more intimate and personal space with her first solo work.
Having played music since childhood, Asara grew up through various band projects before joining Dog Park, alongside Erica Ashleson, Isabella Green Catani, and Jean Duffour. Together, they released the album Festina Lente in 2024 on the same label, Géographie. That collective experience now feeds a more introspective form of songwriting and a deeply personal approach to creation.
Written throughout 2025, 028 Crises unfolds like a near-documentary sonic diary, tracing the emotional landscape of her twenty-eighth year. Voice takes center stage throughout the record, balancing raw vulnerability with sharper rhythmic momentum. Her debut single Cute draws from the textures and pulse of hip-hop drum machines, while Thank You, Thank You stays rooted in a melodic, stripped-back bedroom pop aesthetic. On With Love, Asara blends upright piano with French touch-inspired electronic elements, while the rest of the album leans toward a darker, denser, and more organic form of rock. From her apartment studio in the Paris suburbs, she writes, produces, and shapes the entire visual and sonic identity of the project.
As much a visual artist as a musician, Asara also directs her own music videos and develops the project’s visual world herself. The album was recorded with Baptiste Leroy, a longtime creative collaborator since their teenage years, at Studio 48L in Paris.
The album’s artwork is a piece created by the artist Hélène Rose Kinsey-Grumbach based on a letter written by Sarah, as well as for their 3rd single “With Love.”
“First Day” is the first song written for the album 028 Crises. Asara wrote it after leaving an appointment, haunted by a question that lingered in her mind: “Why do you seem so angry?”, a phrase that would later become the song’s recurring chorus. At the time, Sarah was working as a video instructor in a prison. To that question, she simply replied: “Because it’s grey every day and I work in a jail.” From that moment on, the album began to take shape as a form of intimate documentation, an approach that would continue throughout all the songs that followed. Musically, “First Day” is built around a stripped-back arrangement: guitar, bass, and drums. The composition unfolds with simplicity, giving the song a subtle pop sensibility and allowing its emotional core to remain at the forefront. Asara’s voice begins softly, close, gentle, almost shy. But as the song progresses, it gradually grows in strength, intensity, and presence. This evolution gives “First Day” the feeling of a quiet emancipation, as if the voice is slowly finding the confidence it needs to fully emerge. “First Day” still carries the tenderness and fragility of a first gesture. A discreet and sensitive pop song, imbued with the shyness of beginnings.
#_____asara