Artist to Watch: Petra Jarrar Mourns the Person She Was Supposed to Be on “no one at all”

Some of the most moving songs help us understand ourselves a little better. They give voice to those quiet, everyday feelings we rarely say out loud—like wondering if we’re living the life we truly want, or just the one expected of us. Finding our way back to who we really are is a delicate journey, and few artists capture that tender, searching path as thoughtfully as Petra Jarrar. 

The New York–based singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist creates music that channels a kind of quiet brutality. Blending alternative, indie, and folk, her songs pair unflinching lyrics with haunting arrangements, turning deeply personal struggles into something universal.

Jarrar grew up in America as the daughter of an Arab and Southeast Asian immigrant family, living between worlds. Home offered a refuge shaped by heritage and tradition; outside of it, she often felt out of place. Her childhood as a touring classical pianist made her a natural on stage. 

Inside Petra Jarrar’s “no one at all”

Her new single, “no one at all,” confronts the disorienting realization that the life she worked so hard to build may have belonged to someone else all along. To tell that story, Jarrar turned to a familiar collaborator: producer All Made Up (Allee Futterer), who also co-wrote and produced her debut single, “spiral.” All Made Up brings experience from working with Findlay and touring with Weyes Blood and Chappell Roan, and together with co-writer Eli Hershiser, the pair helped Jarrar shape a song about separating your own desires from the ones you’ve inherited.

The track is the second chapter of Jarrar’s larger concept project exploring grief, memory, identity, and transformation. Where the project centers on mourning, “no one at all” widens that idea to include the loss of self: grieving an identity constructed from expectation, achievement, inheritance, and other people’s projections.

Sonically, “no one at all” leans into the atmospheric alt-folk sound Jarrar has become known for. Emily Rosenfield’s guitar, All Made Up’s bass, and Kiehl Feher’s drums give it a full-band pulse, while Jarrar’s vocal stays intimate and unguarded at the center. The effect is quietly unsettling, like catching your reflection and not quite recognizing who’s looking back.

A World Built Room by Room

What makes Jarrar stand out is how fully she builds that world. Drawing on Victorian Gothic imagery and historical mourning rituals, she treats each release as a chapter, told through music, film, photography, garments, and sculpture.

For “no one at all,” she upcycled a “skeleton dress” to represent the erosion of identity and built a sculptural tree woven with hair, Palestinian olive branches, poppies, and Sri Lankan butterflies. The canvas is a nod to the Victorian tradition of hair art, reshaped through her own heritage.

The accompanying short film is just as personal. Jarrar directed and edited it herself, and also handled the styling, hair, and makeup, working alongside creative director Sophie Chalk, cinematographer Kira Sanchez, and choreographer Bea Goodwin. It enters another room of the house at the heart of her concept project, where a haunted mirror reveals the version of herself who never strayed from the path laid out for her.

Mirrors are everywhere. Jarrar clutches a hand mirror while more reflections crowd the background, each one a reminder of who she was supposed to be. As “the hands,” a recurring embodiment of her inner demons played by Mikayla Petrilla, try to pull her back toward that life, she falls and the glass shatters. The film closes with her lying still on the floor, and a simple promise: to be continued.

Why Petra Jarrar Is an Artist to Watch

Jarrar isn’t simply releasing singles; she’s constructing a haunted house of a project, one room at a time, and inviting listeners to walk through it with her. With “no one at all,” Petra Jarrar turns a lifetime of performing for others inward, asking what remains when you finally stop playing the person everyone expected you to be. Her answer is haunting, carefully crafted, and deeply human, making her one of the most compelling new voices to follow right now.