Albums
AXIS MUNDI 2024
Another great cd from the brilliant vocalist Sascha Ley and her wonderful musician collaborators.
Shelley Hirsch, NY
The symbiotic relationship between voice and instruments is captivating; how Sascha Ley, Laurent Payfert (double bass), Murat Öztürk (piano) and Jean Pascal Boffo (live sound processing) exchange ideas across a broad spectrum of emotions and how a wide variety of musical eras and styles flash across a long arc of tension. The centrepiece is Ley's almost magical vocal artistry - it includes the spoken word (in this case self-penned) and is a sign of self-confident femininity.
Stefan Uhrmacher, Saarbrücker Zeitung DE 02/24
Axis Mundi is more than a mere musical reflection. Whether progressive or experimental, cosmic or Avant-Garde Jazz, this music mingles with Sascha Ley’s vocal performance, at times both sensual and raw, pure and alluring.
Jacques Prouvost, BE
The Laughter of the Red Moon 2023
... it's worth indulging in this completely unsentimental, extremely fresh new discovery.
Wolfgang Gratzer JAZZ PODIUM 12/23|1/24
Jazzalbum of the week! Michael Laages Radio NDR 10-11/23
An album not only for friends of vocal experiments. Great music, we are thrilled! Jacek Brun, Jazz-Fun 10/23
To call Ley a singer who interprets melodies, in no way does justice to the sound experience [..] The music takes the listener along and it surprises. At times because of its energy, at times through daring twists or rhythmic finesses. Thomas Bugert JAZZTHETIK 11-12/23
This homage is highly recommended to lovers of contemporary, barrier-free jazz. Beyond the relaxed togetherness, its strongest asset is Ley's extraordinary virtuoso vocal artistry: she has more to offer than just spectacular indigenous singing techniques and gets to the heart of the expression, whether singing parody or speaking forcefully - and in explosive improvisation anyway. Even wistful schlager dreams don't slip into sticky pathos. Magnificent. Stefan Uhrmacher - Saarbrücker Zeitung 11/23
IN BETWEEN 2022
Sascha Ley's sources of inspiration are majestic. She literally feeds the audience with her deep songs, her voice carries, carries away. Her melodies are ethereal and ghostly, her singing is haunting. Michel Schroeder, Zeitung vum Lëtzebuerger Vollek 01/23 LU
Singing "Lush Life" stripped to the bone like this is something you first have to dare to do. Sascha Ley, singer and performance artist from Luxembourg, dares and wins all along the line. Behind her, chunks of sound fall from the synthesizer, while her voice asserts itself in every line, each of Ley's words is intelligible. Later Ley will set to music - "Love In Outer Space" by Sun Ra, - besides the Strayhorn it is the only foreign material - far from the unpredictability of the Archestra, but still endowed with its mental states. In between, Ley tries things out, communicating nonverbally, layering different soundtracks of her voice. It occasionally reminds of the Vocal Summit band of the seventies, which, except for Bobby McFerrin, consisted of all women, but at times also of the exploratory urge of a Laurie Anderson, although Ley has no amplified violin at hand, but "only" micro synth & gadgets. On five of the seventeen numbers, which may be only two minutes long, Ley asks Jean Pascal Boffo to join her for the live sound processing. She creates a world with its own parameters, based primarily on reduction and pure accuracy of expression. "In Between" : One indeed lands in an in-between realm. It is an exciting place. Susanne Müller, Jazz Podium (DE) 12/22 | 1/23
Hard to believe what this woman can do with her voice: This is the first impression when listening to the album "In Between" (JazzHausMusik), the solo debut of the internationally sought-after German-Luxembourg artist Sascha Ley. "In Between" ("Dazwischen") seems to be the life motto of the Saarbrücken-born artist: As a singer, pianist, actress, poet, composer and performer, Ley moves between all categories, and stylistically her vocal art can hardly be labeled either - she permanently crosses the borders between jazz, contemporary classical music, free improvisation, stylized folklore, sound experiments, rap or electronic tinkering. When Ley coos, whispers, recites in several languages; when we imagine ourselves in a radio play situation in the face of her technically multiplied voice, or when Ley imitates the archaic tongue-beat with a strong sound, it never remains superficial vocal acrobatics. Rather, her "songs", stories and sound collages are like chapters of an emotional diary - parts of a dramaturgical synthesis of the arts, which Jean P. Boffo seems to finally beam into cosmic-spacious expanses by means of "sound-processing". Stephan Uhrmacher, SZ (DE) 12/22 (DE)
Her first solo reveals a unique multi-layered lyrical world interspersed with experimental songs. Hiroki Sugita, Portrait in Jazz (JP) 12/22
A truly impressive voice. A remarkable CD.
Michael van Gee, Radio Dreyeckland (DE) 12/22
A singular artist. "In Between" is a whole work, a choreography, almost a conductor's score, of an incredible intensity, with different and very rich atmospheres. Her art is impressive. A singer who bewitches you. A voice that fills the space. One is well there.
Alain Duret, Danielle et Gérard Dugelay, Radio RCF (FR) 11/22
I've been fascinated by the singer's universe for a long time. Sascha Ley is not afraid to draw us into our own subconscious. The vibrations that resonate and clash get under your skin and into your cortex. The singer has a sense of nuance and narration. She masters her effects. The sensual song of a mermaid mixes with that of an opera singer or a frightened child. Sascha unsettles and amazes us. The whole concert (like the record) is a journey, an experience and a reflection on life, society, the place of women, and memories. It's class. It is very personal and quite unique. It's a concert (a performance) to be experienced. Jacques Prouvost Jazzques (BE) 11/22
Sascha Ley’s new album In Between was released on 12 October and has already garnered critical acclaim. The jazz vocalist has expanded her sonic landscape by using loop stations, synths and a variety of instrumentation to explore a world of abstract vocals, narrative songs and onomatopoeia. The album veers between the experimental and the accessible, the dreamlike and the nostalgic as Sascha deals with loss and love and desire and intellect. Duncan Roberts, Delano (LU) 11/22
Dazzlingly, the singer, musician and actress Sascha Ley musically opened the well-attended evening [...] impressed with her singing and vocal artistry. Of course, Ley can also sing classical jazz, which shows through when she switches from synthesizer to piano.
There is dangerous cooing, heavy panting, energetic shouting of "Eo!" like a shepherdess across the vast steppe, and this is then layered on top of each other by means of a loop station to form complex structures that are always unique and never become a mannerism. Effortlessly Ley masters the throat singing technique of the Inuit, sometimes reminding of the African world music of "Zap Mama" and in her free spirit of the great old Meredith Monk. But her titles never seem epigonal, she always transforms the material into something of her own.
Silvia Buss, Saarbrücker Zeitung (DE) 10/22
Journey into the in-between. The triple threat artist, whose achievements would be enough to fill two pages of this newspaper, presents her new solo album In Between at the Neimënster. The 17-song experimental album is tailor-made for the stage. Sascha Ley plays her voice like a violin whose playing hands she mimes. She cradles her invisible instrument. We speak of memory and oblivion, [...] of that particular space to which Sascha Ley always returns [...] an indeterminate space. With In Between, Sascha Ley makes easily accessible what is not easily accessible. Mixing frankly crazy bravura pieces and warmer songs (all proportion kept), In Between definitely hits the bull's eye. Kévin Kroczek, D’Land (LU) 10/22
Piano, synth sounds, voice, noises and effects - these are the ingredients that vocalist, actress and performer Sascha Ley uses to create 17 experimental tracks on her first solo album. She explores what can be done with the voice - and that's a lot! She improvises, shouts, trills, growls, pants and sings, holds a dialogue with herself, explores different resonances. There are spacey soundscapes and vocal acrobatics ("Playground," "Circe Sings") that get by without words, somewhere between Zap Mama, Björk, Pygmy and Joik chants. But she's also a great storyteller, reciting her thoughts and feelings as if from a personal notebook, dealing with presentness and nostalgia, dreams and desires, open spaces and finitude, intuition and change. Mane Stelzer, Melodiva (DE) 10/22
The various elements of this music come to life as they emerge and interact with each other. After a while it is impossible to distinguish what was originally a draft, a sketch, and what was a detail that only emerged in the course of editing. With her musical concept, Sascha Ley seems to me to be a personality who stands somewhat apart from the so-called jazz scene and is very interesting not only for that reason. Jazz-Fun Magazine (DE) 10/22
Sascha Ley continues to explore her sonic territory. Her new album, "In Between", is an astonishing collage of voices, improvisations and little stories. Discovery.
This time supported by a piano, a micro-synthesizer and other devices that seem like everyday objects, the singer is radical and singular, juggling with words, language and vocalisms. Even better, as if to remind us of her enthusiasm for improvisation and avant-garde music, she combines, in 17 crazy but catchy songs, sound loops, vocoder, noises and whistles. Her way of affirming that she doesn't fit into any category. Grégory Cimatti, Le Quotidien (LU) 10/2022
The singer, performer, poet SASCHA LEY shows her skills kaleidoscopically in 17 parts, five of them with live sound processing by Jean Pascal Boffo. […] Curious sound structures, which she creates with Satie or Cage piano, micro synth & gimmicks, with multi-tracked interlocked rap, beatboxing, vocoder-singing à la 'O Superman', whimsical vocalizing, loud-necked folkloric mannerisms, whispers, tongue-twisters and little stories in the tone of Hirsch. But with undeniably its own charm and wit, as she juggles there with prose, poetry, glossolalia and droning waves and also whistling, conjuring up a very peculiar mono-musical. Badalchemy (DE) 09/22