Just a little reminder that Iceland’s Soffía Björg is still on the scene. She released her debut, eponymous, album a couple of years ago and has been fairly quiet since then, with just a handful of Icelandic songs to her name although I believe that a second album in English is being put together.
If she doesn’t immediately come to mind she burst onto the scene back in 2015 with the delightful retro 1960s-like ‘I lie’ which also featured on the first album, although Nordic Music Review did introduce her very briefly late in 2014 after we stumbled across some demos.
She’s been busy touring abroad, taking in the likes of the Eurosonic festival a few years ago, also visits to Poland and the Faroe Islands, and a trip out to Nordklang, a Nordic music festival in St Gallen, Switzerland in February.
Soffía can play solo sets with just a guitar (I was fortunate enough to catch one at Iceland Airwaves last November) or band sets, and her usual band contains some of Iceland’s top musicians, such as virtuoso guitarist Pétur Ben, in-demand bassist Ingibjörg Elsa Turchi and economical drummer Kristofer Rodriguez Svonuson.
Recently released ‘Heyholt’ is a typical Icelandic ballad and quite different from what she does in English, which has been compared quite reasonably with the work of Norah Jones. Heyholt is an area close to her home town of Borgarnes, about 50 miles north of Reykjavik, where she lives on a farm. Once sharing her musical life with that of a tour guide inside a glacier her focus is now 100% on the music.
Apart from another album I’m hoping that she will, eventually, play some shows in the UK, even if only at a festival. The UK has gone far too long without sampling her song writing and live performance skills.
I Lie
(Picture: Soffía Björg playing an off-venue show at Joe & the Juice during Iceland Airwaves in Reykjavik, November 2019.)
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