New Single Alert! Circle of Destruction is released today!

I’m so excited to present the first single from my new album “Center of the Universe” which will be released this Fall. The first single is called “Circle of Destruction”.

We were joking in the studio when we were recording this song that it is Folk Metal, because the title – Circle of Destruction – sounds like a metal song more than a Folk/Americana/bluegrass piece. But it’s not Folk Metal, so don’t worry. I wrote the song in the first days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but it’s also inspired by non war immigration, as well as a search for truth in a society that is more information based than fact based.

We recorded the song (and album) in the most peaceful place! Imagine yourself in a small rural village in Sweden. White-trimmed wooden houses that date back several hundred years are tucked in between the pines and birch tees next to the quiet lake where the sunlight glitters like gold on the gentle ripple. All around you, you can hear the buzzing of bumblebees, birds singing in the trees, and the sheep are grazing in a nearby pasture, surrounded by a hand tied willow fence. You can imagine that all that magic seeped into the recordings (and some of the bird song too).

With a group of carefully selected musicians; Peyton Clifford and Drake Duffer on accordion, guitar, and mandolin (both hailing from North Carolina) and Janne Manninen on bass (from Sweden), we built up a studio in the living room of one of the old houses. I’m so happy with how the album is turning out and I hope you will like it too!

If you want to support my tour, and Lil’Chief’s breakdowns (yes we already had to change the front brakes) please consider paying something for the single – add your own number what you think it is worth, you can do this on Bandcamp.

Get it here:

Free Christmas single!


It’s that time of year, you know that time when the roads get icy and the evenings are dark. So here’s a little light in the darkness – my annual Christmas single.

This year I’m also releasing it as a video. I got the chance to take a ride with the lady of trucking; Hanna Fange, and she is starring as herself in the video. Hanna knew from when she was a little girl that she wanted to drive the big rigs, and even though she was told “girls don’t drive trucks” she made her dream come true. Let’s hope she never meets the same ending as the trucker in “A Long Way Home”.

You can download the song here, for free or “pay what you want”. You can also choose to give me a little Christmas donation for the song and the video by clicking the donation banner at the top of this post.

Merry Christmas!

Bolstered by the icy visuals in the stark one-camera video, Swedish singer/songwriter Sofia Talvik’s seasonal release “A Long Way Home” rings with the bright Nordic flavor she claims as a solid birthright, echoing a priority of travelers worldwide: the drive to touch home base in the Yuletide season. While it glides along quite pleasantly on a casual first listening, the song becomes all the more poignant when reminding us that tragic events are a year-round reality, and not every holiday story has a happy ending. Talvik’s airy vocals, a chorus of blended horns, and chord changes that suggest an eighteen-wheeler shifting gears make this a road song for enjoying any time and place. – Keith Harrelson

My Christmas singles in the press

Amelia Christmas

Every year I release a Christmas single, and sometimes it takes a while for them to become a Christmas classic 😉 but you know they have when Sweden’s biggest women’s magazine Amelia writes about them in their Christmas edition.

Amelia Christmas
Amelia Christmas

 

“Christmas eve 2012  turned out exactly like we had hoped. A day filled with candlelight, great Christmas music (Michael Bublé’s album “Christmas” and Sofia Talvik’s Christmas single “Snowy White River” played on repeat), excited children, happy parents, good food. (…)” Editor Jenny Oscarsson writes in her column. 

This year’s Christmas single is just released but some blogs have already picked it up, amongst them German blog “Lie in the sound“. “One of the most beautiful Christmas tradition for us is the annual Christmas single by Sofia Talvik .” they write, and the blog Christmas A Go Go! seconds by writing “Leave it to German blog Lie in the Sound to cherrypick the bestest new Christmas releases. Like this beautiful track by Sofia Talvik“. 

Stubby’s House of Christmas writes:

“Swedish singer/songwriter Sofia Talvik offers up a free Christmas song every year. And pretty much every year, I declare that “this is her best yet” or that “this is my absolute favorite.” Well, “A Berlin Christmas Tale” is Sofia’s best Christmas song yet and my absolute favorite. Sofia has explored a lot of different musical styles in the past, but “A Berlin Christmas Tale” returns Sofia–with the enrichment of all her musical experimentation and time on the road–to the Sofia I was originally drawn to…the Folk Pop artist who paints pictures with her music, words, and voice–pictures so clear and alive that you experience them yourself.”

Sofia Talvik’s Xmas Calendar 2012 #21

Sofia Talvik's Xmas Calendar, window 21
Sofia Talvik’s Xmas Calendar, window 21

Ho Ho Ho! Earlier this year I played a few shows up in Oregon and did something called the Salem Songwriter Sessions, which is basically a local TV show on CCTV (Salem, OR.) featuring artists playing live with the Salem Songwriter crew!

As I had just finished writing my new Christmas single at the time I thought it would be perfect to record it with the Salem Songwriter guys, and here it is -“One Last Wish For Christmas” live from Oregon!

Tom Phillips: Guitar
Aaron Panko: Bass
Audio: Brandon Johnson & Jonas
Filming Crew:
Charles Lewis
Dan Sprenkle
Sara Roth
Eric Kittleson
Anita Panko

Get the official single here: http://music.sofiatalvik.com/album/one-last-wish-for-christmas

Did you miss a day in the calendar? See all the windows in the Xmas Calendar here: https://sofiatalvik.com/julkalendern

Sofia Talvik’s Xmas Calendar 2012 #20

Sofia Talvik's Xmas Calendar, Window 20

Last year I cooked a Swedish Christmas meal for some of my Florida friends. And my friend Courtney’s brother asked her before the dinner if Swedish meatballs actually exist or if they’re just a myth. I thought that was so funny, so I decided to make y’all some Swedish meatballs in this window of the calendar!

 Watch it here

Now you can all make them at home, and I promise they will taste way better than IKEA’s. 😉 Oh and the catchy tune in the background is my disco Christmas single from two years ago called Santa. It’s a free download that you can get here!

Did you miss a day in the calendar? See all the windows in the Xmas Calendar here: https://sofiatalvik.com/julkalendern