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.
So I got an email from Georgia who told me that she and her fellow students at the Birmingham Institute of Art and design had made a video for my song “Delusional” from the EP “V – Part Three of L.O.V.E“. Of course I had to share it and here it is!
Created in collaboration with:
Georgia Williamson
Lilith Winnicott
Laura Stubbs
Charlotte Burton
Kathryn Hughes
Music produced by Janne Manninen
Today I’m releasing my 5th album “The Owls Are Not What They Seem”. Thank you everyone who pre-ordered the CD and to all my fans who pledged for the four EPs in L.O.V.E that preceded this album. (To make it clear for those of you who haven’t heard the EPs – this is a totally different production.)
I’m shipping all of the pre-ordered signed albums today. You who have pre-ordered will also get your download codes today. And for you who missed out on the physical release here’s some links to where you can listen. You will still be able to listen and purchase a download in any format you prefer here: Sofia’s music store.
If you’d rather go through the middle man, you can listen and purchase a download here (and probably a bunch of other online stores too):
Spotify
CDbaby
Amazon
iTunes (please rate and write something here if you like it)
Here’s a live video of one of the songs from the album performed at Moonlight on the Mountain in Birmingham, AL on my Drivin’ & Dreaming tour that I’m currently doing in the US.
Today is the day when the L.O.V.E & H.A.T.E saga has reached it’s end as “E – Part Four of H.A.T.E” is released. I’m extra happy to see that the last metal band in this project has a female singer, and that it doesn’t make it one bit less hard rock than the other EPs.
You can now listen to and buy “E – Part Four of H.A.T.E” by Akribi on Spotify, iTunes, Amazon and all your other favorite online stores. You can also stream (and buy) the entire EP here!
Thank you to all who have participated in the project through pledging, and to all the great metal bands who worked hard to make my songs their own. I’m blown away by they wonderful job they’ve done and I can’t wait to hear more from all of them!
The last part of the H.A.T.E saga is coming to en end. Swedish rockers Akribi is releasing the EP “E – Part Four of H.A.T.E” December 1st and a year of music has gone by. I’ve had such a great time hearing my songs in new suits. First with all the L.O.V.E EPs which were each produced by one of the guys in my band and ranged from acoustic to pop to electronica to americana. And then the biggest difference of all with the awesome four metal bands Ball of Mayhem, G.A.I.N, Badmouth and Akribi who turned my songs into thundering hard rock! It proves that a song never has to be stuck in one genre – at least if it’s a good song 😉
You can listen to all the EPs HERE and pre-order Akribi’s EP HERE!
Thanks for listening and supporting me all year!
Soon the last part of H.A.T.E will be released by Swedish metal band Akribi. We managed to keep them still for a few minutes to ask them some questions about the meaning of life and metal…
Hi Akribi! You guys are doing “E – Part Four of H.A.T.E”. How has the experience been so far?
Definitely different. We’re not at all used to interpreting other musician’s materials, nor working with such tight deadlines, but it’s been a very fun and rewarding experience so far.
Great! Can you tell us a little bit about yourselves?
We’re a female-fronted progressive metal band based in Gothenburg, Sweden. The band started out back in 2003, based on the idea of playing ambitious metal with strong songwriting. It’s an ideal that has remained intact through countless lineup changes over the years. As a consequence of this, we like to work with a slightly expanded palette of scales, chords and time signatures in our music. Oh, and let’s just get one very common misconception out of the way… “female-fronted” in this case does not mean “gothic” or “operatic”.
Just like Badmouth you’re releasing this EP only a few months after your
album release. Are you always this productive?
Given the right circumstances, sure. As hinted above, the band has had a bit of a rough history with lineup changes and whatnot. We have begun writing the next album and it’s going surprisingly fast so maybe we’ve learnt a thing or two about efficiency.
Did you think it was hard to interpret Sofia’s songs into your own style or did you get ideas straight away?
We decided to transcribe the chords and scales that Sofia used. After we had done that we stopped listening to Sofia’s versions and began working. We sent note sheets with ideas to each other; “Could this be something?”, “Would this passage sound better if we changed scales to Lydian?”, “What happens if we add this chord there?” and so on and then we tried playing the ideas. We changed a lot, added riffs and details to make it more Akribi. It took us about a month and then we recorded it, sent it to our mixing guys in Brazil and voilà.
Which of the songs are you most pleased with and why?
It’s difficult to pick a song. It sounds weird but when you live with a song in the intense way that’s required for writing and recording it it sort of becomes your baby. The song we play the most often nowadays is The Garden. The guitar solos are great and Alexander gets to play his Chapman Stick and that always makes him happy. Our songs are usually pretty long and that makes set lists tricky to do so it’s good to have a shorter-than-four-minutes-song up our sleeve.
What’s your favorite gig memory?
That must be the first time we were on stage and the audience sang along with our song Carry the Rain. It’s an incredible feeling. But if you’re looking for an awkward anecdote it must be when the guards didn’t let our drummer back into the building after a sound check. He tried to convince them that he was in the band but the guards told him “yeah right, that’s what everybody says”. The rest of us were backstage ready to go on stage not knowing where he was.
Can you tell us a little bit about the recording sessions and what was most fun with being a part of this project?
Well, the recording workflow was the same that we always follow. When we’ve written the chord progressions, melodies and overall structure of a song, we record (or in this particular case, program) a drum track and have everyone record their parts individually to that. All recordings are then assembled in a sequencer and a rough pre-mix is done. Feedback is sent out, obscene words are exchanged, and adjustments are made. When everyone is sufficiently satisfied, the tracks are sent away for mixing. The most interesting and fun part of this project was that is was far out of the realm of what we usually do. Apart from on a few auditions, we don’t play or record external material. Oh, and we finally got to put a growling part in a song, courtesy of Rafael Basso of “Unlit Face”.
What’s next on the agenda for Akribi this winter?
In October we got a new drummer and we’re in the process of getting to know each other musically and he’s learning all our songs. Parallel to this we’re in contact with booking agents and promoters around Europe. Music is always better live and life on stage is great so we’ll play live as much as possible.
If you would record a Christmas metal album, which three songs would be on your list?
Hey, we’re a metal band! We don’t do Christian things 😉
Thanks for hanging out! We look forward to hearing the songs 🙂
Listen and pre order E – Part Four of H.A.T.E by Akribi here! You’ll get an instant download of one of the songs! The EP will be released December 1st.
Listen to all the EPs of the L.O.V.E vs H.A.T.E saga here:
