Ever since the release of her debut album »We Sink« (2011), Sóley Stefánsdóttir, better known as Sóley and member of the band Seabear, has been wowing audiences around the globe, and after a quick parental leave, she’s now back with the next surprise: Instead of presenting another album of sepia-toned pop tunes, the bespectacled multi-instrumentalist from Iceland returns with an EP entitled »Krómantík«, a short, eerie, cinematic, almost voice-less set of piano tracks she originally composed for various art projects over a longer period of time.
»I always wanted to do a piano album, ever since I was in the art academy,« she explains. »I wrote a lot of music for piano back then, and I had so many long compositions that I included some short piano chapters, which I later realized could actually stand on their own. Some of the pieces were written while studying – and the first track for example, was originally part of a bigger composition for piano that I wrote. However, in the end I didn’t use that many pieces from school, just because I liked doing new songs, and so a lot of them were written for a bigger art project I worked on during the summer after I finished my first album.«
Sóley’s take on instrumental piano music is a stunningly bleak and shadowy overture to her sophomore album, which she plans to release in 2015.
Get your gloves out – here’s »Krómantík« in her own words:
»›Krómantík‹ is a piano album that was mostly composed and recorded the summer of 2011. The album includes eight piano songs, some shorter than others. In the night or when it’s cold and rainy outside, sit in a chair in your living room and listen. If you feel like it, move a little. Imagine a little out-of-tune piano in one corner, then imagine old hands. Those old hands have a story to tell. Those hands are almost unreal but it’s hard to tell only by listening. Those hands will play until Krómantík fades into silence and your closed eyes slowly start seeing something much deeper and darker.«
