Astrid Sonne is a Danish, London based composer and viola player. Throughout her acclaimed discography, Astrid Sonne has been carefully crafting different moods through electronic and acoustic instrumental endeavours.
On her most recent album “Great Doubt” (January 2024) this skill is refined, now with the distinct addition of the composer’s own vocal in the fore. The tone of each track is unmistakably Sonne’s, structured around contrasts through an impeccable sense of timing. Lyrics on the album are sparse, merely highlighting different scenes or emotional states of being, leaving the music to fill in the blanks. Yet they also form a pattern of ambiguity, consolidated through the album title, searching for answers through looking at how and what you are asking, questions for the world, questions of love.
The viola, a trusted companion since Astrid Sonne’s youth, appears effortlessly throughout the album, fully integrated into the sonic universe; through a pizzicato driven arrangement in the poignant track “Almost” or along with booms and claps in mutated cinematic stabs during “Give my all”, paraphrasing Mariah Carey’s 1997 ballad. Yet the string section also gives way to explorations of woodwinds, counterbalancing the bowed movements with digital brass and airy flutes. Finally, beats and detuned piano are fresh additions to the soundscape, cementing how Sonne’s practice is always evolving into new territories.
Nina Ryser is a Philly-based musician and composer. Her music has always inhabited its own world; a singular and cohesive collection of Keyboard-centric home recordings that marry her undeniable pop sensibilities with her background in contemporary composition, the product a truly bizarre dreamlike aesthetic. With a solo career spanning 8 releases as well as her work in the highly influential art-punk trio Palberta, Nina’s artistic voice has been a staple in the American underground for over a decade. Her latest record released in September 2024, Water Giants, is her first solo release recorded outside of her home studio — with a myriad of collaborators, it is Nina’s most pristine and expansive experimental pop offering to date, centering Nina as a dynamic performer and lyricist while maintaining the surreal qualities of her previous works.
