Sofia Talvik – Americana / Folk with Swedish Roots
Unmistakably Nordic in flavor, Sofia Talvik somehow still conforms to American interpretations of her own original music, a North Sea siren blending sparkle and melancholy, creating a special niche of folk music.
Today we started shooting the video for my upcoming single "It's just love". A short but intense day on location and an extra hour outside in the cold winter night we had two thirds of the video recorded. Click for larger picture.
me
and Jonas, producer
Well, we are expecting to get the album in stock around Christmas so it does start to feel a bit magical. But if I thought it was hard work making the album, I suppose I had no idea all these documents were coming up. I've been filling out form after form and numbers and codes 'til I tought my brain was going to explode. But soon it's done and the one thing that is cheering me up the most at the moment is our little bonus project. I wasn't going to tell you just yet but I can't stay quiet any longer haha. We're releasing the entire album in a remixed version for free on sofiatalvik.com. 13 talanted artists from Sweden, England and Japan are each making a remix of one of the songs from the album. The result will be a dancy, cool album, so very different from the original.
A couple of the remixes has already started to drop in via mail and today's treasure is Sweden's own electronica queen Sophie Rimheden's remix of my song Mother's way, Father's way. Me and Sophie had a bit of a disco thing going on last year and wrote a song called Xmas on the Dancefloor. You can listen to it on our myspace site. I think Sophie is a brilliant artist so it was no wonder I wanted to work with her again when I got the chance.
Hope you like the new site by the way, it's still a bit under construction but soon we'll have all the pieces put together.
cheers
Sofia
I'm counting days til the 8th of november. That's when the album should, and hopefully will be, mixed and finished.
Today we added the last instrumental parts, a wonderful arrangement for three saxophones written by Hanna for the song "will you call me when you're sober". Now hold it, I know what you're thinking; "hmmm…saxophones, you mean like early Sting or perhaps that funky sound of Tina Turner?" But I promise you, it's nothing like that at all. Actually the saxophone parts on this album has sort of become my favourite sound. You rarely hear it in popmusic today, at least not like this.
Hanna (who plays the soprano saxophone) brought her friend Nis (who plays the baryton) and I barely had time to say "saxophone" before they were finished with the recordings and out the studio door. I'm so lucky to have such talanted musicians playing on this album, but then again, they're so lucky to have such a great producer (me!) hehe. Just kidding, but it's coming out just wonderful som I'm very happy with it.
Now, it may have been a quick recording this afternoon, but you will have all the time in the world to enjoy it as I'm posting a sample for you to listen at.
And that's all for today folks!
I've had a busy week listening to various adds to the album, we've finished strings and piano and it's time for a little sample again.
Erik Jansson has been more than creative arranging some beautiful string orchestras for a couple of the songs. Erik also works with Jay Jay Johanson and has been a part of Jay Jay's set for many years now. And Jozsef has added a finishing touch to his amazing piano. It has all come together.
Here's a beautiful sample of their work conjoined. Never mind the irritating buzzing noice that my computer added when I bounced the song to mp3. I promise it won't be there on the album 😉
I suppose many of you that read this blog has found it through myspace.
I know everybody's already been raving about myspace for ages but I have to cheer a bit more. This time it's because of a wonderful pianist I found through myspace and immediately tied to the new album.
I actually used to play the piano myself. I played classic paino for about 10 years, but then I moved out of my parents place and realised that a guitar is so much lighter than a piano. I still play when I'm at their house and I sometimes dream of having my own piano, but for now the guitar will have to do, and for playing on the album, well I better leave that to someone more talanted than me.
So when I stumbled over Jozsef Nemeth's myspace site I couldn't have been more lucky. Funnily enough Jozsef is Swedish, like me, even though he lives in the US. And with you eight million or so Americans on myspace, we Swedes have to fight for our own, right? 😉 Anyway, we exchanged a couple of emails and later that week a mp3 found its way to my inbox. I didn't dare to hope too much as you never know with people on the internet (just a while ago one person offered to mix my album in Garageband… so there sure are all kinds). But the piano Jozsef had composed for my song was wonderful, daring, careful and beautiful.
I'll post some samples later on, so until then you'll have to make do with this pic of Jozsef. And visit his myspace site for some of his own samples.
