There’s a quiet revolution happening in sound design, one that asks you to do more than listen, but to feel its heart through and through. London-based artist Sharon Katta’s latest EP, Death said, Breathe, is that revolution: a cinematic, immersive journey that lingers and shifts alongside the listener. The project charts the fragile arc from despair to rebirth, threading together stillness, mortality, and the possibility of renewal.
The project’s genesis is deeply personal: a single phone call with his sister shifted the course of Katta’s life, planting the seed for six years of painstaking creation. That intimacy seeps into every layer of sound, from gunshots and distorted echoes that make you feel untethered, to glistening field recordings of rain, waves, and forest life. By the midpoint, the suffocating weight of hopelessness gives way to an ethereal release: a letting go that’s both tender and cathartic. “Life is good. I’m grateful I reached out for help before I was too late,” Katta says, and the gratitude resonates across the track’s sonic landscape.
With Grammy-winning engineer James Auwarter, Katta has translated this deeply human experience into Dolby Atmos, creating a listening environment that is expansive yet intimate. More than 100 instruments—ranging from orchestral strings and ethnic instruments to tabla, South Indian street drums, and choirs—layer together, blurring the lines between music, sound design, and lived experience. It’s cinematic without being performative, immersive without being overwhelming, and endlessly inventive in its textures.
Death said, Breathe positions Sharon Katta at the vanguard of a new generation of producers who treat the studio as both canvas and laboratory. It’s an audacious, emotional, and deeply reflective work that doesn’t just ask you to hear, but to feel – to breathe along with the music and, perhaps, find a little space for your own rebirth.
LISTEN TO ‘DEATH SAID, BREATHE’
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