SISTRA bring childhood memories and the complexity of sisterhood into hyperhop

PHOTOGRAPHY Olivia Ezechukwu

For as long as they can remember, London-born sisters Sasha and Sylvie Briggs have moved through life as a pair. Raised in Hackney before spending their teenage years in Reading, SISTRA quickly emerged as one of the UK’s most exciting new electronic-pop acts, flawlessly epitomising the excitement and unpredictability of the genre in the UK scene. Blending avant-pop, art-pop and hyperpop influences with emotionally charged songwriting, the duo creates music that explores the complexities of sisterhood, identity and intimacy.

Long before SISTRA existed, both sisters were immersed in the arts. Classically trained from a young age, Sylvie studied voice and piano while Sasha focused on violin and guitar. Their paths later diverged into film, theatre and television. Sylvie built an acting career with roles in Doctor Who, Cold Feet and HBO’s The Nevers, while Sasha worked in film, serving as an assistant director on Danny Boyle’s Pistol and directing her own short film PANDA, starring her sister. Yet despite pursuing separate creative careers, the pair always seemed destined to find their way back to each other. That moment arrived during lockdown: posting covers of artists such as Fleetwood Mac and Prince online, the sisters began building an audience drawn as much to their chemistry as their music. Since officially launching SISTRA in 2023, they’ve earned support from BBC Radio 1, played sold-out headline shows, appeared at All Points East and toured alongside Rose Gray. 

Now, with the release of their debut album She Won’t Let Go, SISTRA are presenting their most ambitious and personal work to date. Executively produced by co-producer in Charli XCX’s Brat Jon Shave and featuring contributions from Chloe Kraemer (Japanese House, Wet Leg, Paramore), and hyperpop pioneers Danny L Harle and Micah Jasper, the record pushes the duo further into electronic territory while retaining the emotional intensity that has become their signature. “I think we’ve gone for a slightly different sound,” Sylvie points out. “It’s bigger, leaning more into electronics, and a bit more experimental. We’ve always had hyperpop elements, and now we’re just squeezing all of that drama.”

The album itself emerged almost accidentally. Rather than consciously setting out to make a debut record, the sisters found themselves writing relentlessly before beginning a collaboration with Shave, whom they describe as a long-time idol. Their first session together produced the glitteringly electronic track ‘Things I Really Mean’, a breakthrough moment that ultimately shaped the entire project.

From there, She Won’t Let Go seemed to take on a life of its own, with themes of codependency, independence, ambition and identity colliding throughout the record, creating a body of work that feels both theatrical and deeply personal. “One thing leading to another thing,” as the sisters put it – until they eventually realised that the project had become something much bigger than a collection of songs. “We joked that she showed herself to be an album. She couldn’t be anything other than that.”

The house that built them

Conceptually, the tracks reimagine the sisters trapped inside their childhood home, both physically and psychologically, writing songs for and about each other while attempting to grow beyond the relationship that defines them, and harnessing a type of storytelling that is as fascinating as it is emotionally fraught. 

“You know what I’m going to say,” laughs Sylvie when I ask about anecdotes that inspired the claustrophobic connotation of their childhood relationship.  “I locked Sasha in a cupboard under the stairs. I tricked her and said: ‘You wouldn’t fit in there,’” she recalls. “When I say cupboard, I mean a small triangular space, and I crawled into that,” points out Sasha. “She did, and obviously I locked it,” continues Sylvie.

The story is told with laughter, but it neatly encapsulates the emotional contradictions that run throughout the album: affection and antagonism, protection and imprisonment, closeness and the desire to escape. “Making the album, we’re working through these traumas,” smiles Sylvie. Much like the house at the centre of She Won’t Let Go, sisterhood is presented as both a sanctuary and a trap, a place the pair are constantly trying to leave while finding themselves pulled back inside. “It’s family therapy,” adds Sasha.

All the world’s a stage

Film runs through SISTRA’s DNA almost as deeply as music. “Film has always been a massive inspiration for us. We’re from the film and TV world and have made films together,” they explain. That cinematic influence can be felt throughout the album, from its sonically dramatic character to its chapter-like structure. “We love the arc of a film. Having a beginning, middle, obstacle, and end thing. Having that in our songwriting makes our songs feel quite filmic in a way, like chapters, different scenes.” 

Their inspirations range from the claustrophobic tension of Panic Room, whose family dynamics between Jodie Foster and Kristen Stewart’s characters and high-stakes confinement echo the album’s central concept, to the dystopian aesthetic of The Matrix, informing its visual direction. “We love that it’s futuristic, but it’s kind of classic, so it stands the test of time,” they say. Even the album’s closing track, ‘SISTRA’, draws from cinematic conventions, inspired by the idea of a musical overture that revisits recurring motifs and themes. 

Their inescapable sisterly bond

The duo’s sisterly bond is the thread that conceptually weaves together She Won’t Let Go, especially that almost telepathic connection that makes the relationship both comforting and inescapable. “We always say that we grew up really close, but God, you don’t really know what close is until you’re doing something like this,” says Sylvie.

“It’s so intense, doing it full time, quitting our jobs, putting everything into this, which was never a doubt in our minds that we were going to do.” That intensity cuts both ways. “There’s nowhere to hide, in a good way and in a bad way,” they explain. “It’s very comforting, but also difficult because you can’t get away with anything.” This ambivalence is confronted on track ‘In Two’, inspired by Prince’s ‘I Would Die 4 U’, where the sisters address the allure of surrendering entirely to their bond. 

As their creative lives have become inseparable, so too has their sense of artistic self. “When you have an alter ego version of yourself as an artist, and you’re developing those alter egos with the person who is going to clock you more than anyone else would, it’s quite an innately challenging thing,” Sasha reflects. “If I want to lean into a different shade of myself, Sylvie knows whether that is maybe less authentic or more authentic, so it’s just an interesting journey.” That constant mutual visibility has reshaped how they work together, even extending into how they advocate for one another. “Sometimes I find it easier to fight for you than for myself,” she adds. “Advocating for yourself can be hard sometimes, but thinking of it as being for you can be easier.”

We always say that we grew up really close, but God, you don’t really know what close is until you’re doing something like this.

Codependency vs independence

At the centre of She Won’t Let Go is a constant push and pull between codependency and independence, a tension that runs through both the writing and the lived experience behind it. “It’s a whole different thing when we’re relying on each other,” the artists explain, describing a dynamic where separation feels almost impossible to define. That closeness also reframes the way the sisters think about power and vulnerability within relationships. “We talked a lot about danger as well, in the sense of being a danger to each other,” explains Sylvie. “The idea of being a threat to one another, or rescuing from each other rather than being damsels in distress.”

That duality sits at the heart of ‘Double Edged Sword’, a track that captures how deeply intertwined their perspectives have become, even when it comes to romantic relationships. “When you have that bond with your sister, anything is going to pale a bit in comparison to the level of honesty or connection,” says Sasha, underscoring how, for SISTRA, sisterhood is both grounding and consuming in equal measure.

That emotional intensity extends beyond the conceptual world of the album and into their everyday lives. “It’s what the whole album is about,” adds Sylvie. “It’s stressful because I don’t want to be responsible for your happiness in your love life, but I want to know what you think of mine, and if you approve. It’s an everlasting tension,” she says of Sasha.

When you have that bond with your sister, anything is going to pale a bit in comparison to the level of honesty or connection.

Them against the world

A drive towards collective ambition and a shared sense of future purpose runs through SISTRA’s work, shaping both the emotional urgency of She Won’t Let Go and the real-life decisions behind it. That intertwined trajectory also reframed how they take on the demands of building their career, with their creative partnership founded on the decision to fully commit to music together – a leap that elevates the stakes on every level. “It raises the pressure, and I feel responsible for your life, and you for mine,” Sylvie explains, describing how aspiration becomes more complex when success or failure is shared so directly between siblings.

Despite their creative instincts often colliding, their progress feels bound up in mutual accountability, where each step forward is taken as a unit. In the songwriting process, for instance, Sylvie gravitates towards emotional truth rooted in lived experience, while Sasha leans into creative licence in service of the song’s emotional impact. “Serve the song and the storytelling,” as Sasha puts it. These differences have led to friction, with the pair sometimes disagreeing over what really happened versus what best serves the narrative. Yet rather than undermining their work, that tension has become part of its strength. “We know a song is ready when we’re both happy,” they explain. “It’s minor tweaks, a bit of give and take, and compromise.”

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