Sibling Latin music sensations Isaac et Nora aren’t easy to pin down for an interview. For starters, they live in the pottery-making town of Quimper, in the part of France that juts into the Atlantic. Secondly, the time difference between Australia and France means it’s often past their bedtime.
Viral phenomena often quickly flame out but Nora and Isaac, now 12 and 15 respectively, seem to be playing a longer game. The pair became an internet sensation in 2019, with a YouTube video of them performing a 1930s Cuban classic, Veinte Años (Twenty Years), hitting 7.8m views. Nora was only nine at the time; a native French speaker, she learned the Spanish lyrics phonetically.
Since then, supported by their French-Korean guitarist father Nicolas Restoin, Nora (vocals and ukulele) and Isaac (trumpet and guitar) have delighted audiences in Europe and South America with a repertoire of classic Spanish and Latin American songs. They start their debut Australian tour in late February.
We’re on a Zoom call early on a Sunday morning. Along with their native French, Nora and Isaac speak some Spanish and a little English. Nora is all but buried in a big blue woolly scarf (it’s 8C in Brittany) and Isaac is rocking a flannel shirt and baseball cap. Dad Nicolas – who smiles and laughs all through the interview – squeezes into view, to help them with their English, which Nora claims to be learning from episodes of Breaking Bad, The Last of Us and Stranger Things.
“Breaking Bad is my favourite!” she says.
Nicolas hurriedly explains. “I try to find easy solutions for the kids, so they don’t have the sensation of working. We try to find TV series with some addiction … something to get addicted to … what is the word?”
“Binge-watch!” Isaac says.
“Yes! Something we get hooked on, but not too much … couch potato!” Nicolas says with a huge smile. “With the [French] subtitles on, they quickly learn, they get used to the pronunciation. It’s a good way to learn.”
Bright-eyed under-16s learning English with meth cooker Jesse Pinkman and hitman Mike Ehrmantraut? What could possibly go wrong?
“I don’t know if we can say, because Nora is only 12,” adds Nicolas. “But we also like the Narcos series. There is a lot of violence and some sex, too, but it’s in Spanish and English so it’s perfect for us to learn from.”
For Nora, the challenge goes beyond the language. The Latin songs she sings with such disarming candour often speak to the most adult of feelings – the Cuban, double-entendre strewn El Cuarto de Tula, for instance, is about a young woman whose sexual desire got so hot she set her own bedroom on fire and called the fire brigade. Many others are about love and desire, disappointment and loss.
“But I don’t have any boyfriend!” Nora laughs, eyes wide. “So, when I sing, I don’t think about someone. I [use] my imagination. I work a lot on pronunciation and how to sing the melody with emotion. But I am single!”
