|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
LP
|
|
LOV 094LP
|
Red vinyl. "Known for her delicate compositions, soaked in dream-like surrealism, Icelandic musician Sóley has attracted a huge following since launching her solo career back in 2010. Her 2012 single 'Pretty Face' went on to generate an enormous amount of buzz, and quickly became a viral sensation. Now, with three solo LPs under her belt, Sóley is preparing to debut a completely new sound via the release of her new concept album, Mother Melancholia . . . The new album sees Sóley move away from the indie-pop of her previous releases. She began by experimenting with writing songs on the accordion, allowing her a new sense of freedom in her writing. The process allowed her to broaden her horizons even further and experiment with a whole range of new and exciting sounds . . . Album opener 'Sunrise Skulls', one of the most cinematic moments on the album, was inspired by the Me Too and SlutWalk movements and tells the story of a group of women who rise up and fight the patriarchy. 'Blows Up', a track that would be at home on any horror soundtrack, is a sarcastic love letter from the Earth to humans. Standout track 'Desert' is an incredibly moving song dedicated to the next generation. 'It's about the guilt you feel, as a mother, for having children and leaving them on the frontline. My daughter, for example, will take over this inevitable war' explains Sóley. In true soundtrack style, the album flows through the end of the world in chronological order, closing with the Earth's final moments. 'Sundown' is a dark piano ballad detailing human kind's final day on Earth. 'And everyday, I dig my own grave, and as I dive in you´ll hold my hand' she sings, over twinkling piano and swirling synths. We then hear the world end on 'XXX', a dark and swirling soundscape that swells before fading to silence. On 'Elegía' the silence then turns to the sound of the ocean, as we hear the Earth, like a woman finally free from a violent relationship, healing on her own. Mother Melancholia is the mark of an artist confidently striding into more experimental territory. With a lengthy and successful career behind her, Sóley felt compelled to try something new and express the real her. The music might be shrouded in darkness but it's a move that fills her with joy and freedom. 'I hope that people not only enjoy the new sound, but also that Mother Melancholia might raise some questions in people, particularly women' she says. 'I'm under no illusions that this album will change the world but I hope that people can connect with the idea.'"
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
MORR 154LP
|
LP version. Includes inner sleeve and download code. Sóley is back with her third solo album, Endless Summer. Written over the period of one year together with her long-time friend and collaborator Albert Finnbogason, the new full-length sees the acclaimed musician from Iceland explore the more optimistic, sun-drenched corners of her songwriting. Sóley's latest offering is the warmth beneath the snow at the end of winter, the seeds waiting to grow as spring whispers to us. From the heavy organs, synths, and minor keys of her last album Ask the Deep (MORR 138CD/LP, 2015), Endless Summer emerges with a kind of hopeful sweetness, and feels even more vulnerable. "The idea for the album came pretty randomly one night in beginning of January 2016 when I woke up in the middle of the night and wrote a note to myself: 'Write about hope and spring'," she says about the album's general direction. "So I painted my studio in yellow and purple, bought a grand piano, sat down and started playing, singing and writing." And Endless Summer delivers just that, opening with the song "Úa" (named after her young daughter) that washes over the listener like a hopeful dream. It's based on an adventurous acoustic arrangement reminiscent of Joanna Newsom or Agnes Obel, which sets the tone for what is to follow in its wake. Throughout the new album, Sóley's arrangements for a small orchestra give Endless Summer a colorful touch: Take, for example, the track "Never Cry Moon", in which the sound of clarinet, trombone, and cello beautifully engulf Sóley's repetitive piano playing. Comprised of eight songs, Endless Summer is an album that's grounded in fertile wisdom. Not just an ethereal dream of love and light, but a subtle, accumulative wisdom. One might say that one of Sóley's signature is the childlike wonder in her lyrics, and Endless Summer delivers the same wonder, but with a kind of reverence for it, for she's no longer a wanderer in a nightmare, but an enchanted lover of mystery. Endless Summer is like the Icelandic summer, a liminal, endless turning, a shift of consciousness, an endless awakening of continual brightness not without the acknowledgement of winter; it is the eruption from which the rebirth of light emerges.
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
CD
|
|
MORR 154CD
|
Sóley is back with her third solo album, Endless Summer. Written over the period of one year together with her long-time friend and collaborator Albert Finnbogason, the new full-length sees the acclaimed musician from Iceland explore the more optimistic, sun-drenched corners of her songwriting. Sóley's latest offering is the warmth beneath the snow at the end of winter, the seeds waiting to grow as spring whispers to us. From the heavy organs, synths, and minor keys of her last album Ask the Deep (MORR 138CD/LP, 2015), Endless Summer emerges with a kind of hopeful sweetness, and feels even more vulnerable. "The idea for the album came pretty randomly one night in beginning of January 2016 when I woke up in the middle of the night and wrote a note to myself: 'Write about hope and spring'," she says about the album's general direction. "So I painted my studio in yellow and purple, bought a grand piano, sat down and started playing, singing and writing." And Endless Summer delivers just that, opening with the song "Úa" (named after her young daughter) that washes over the listener like a hopeful dream. It's based on an adventurous acoustic arrangement reminiscent of Joanna Newsom or Agnes Obel, which sets the tone for what is to follow in its wake. Throughout the new album, Sóley's arrangements for a small orchestra give Endless Summer a colorful touch: Take, for example, the track "Never Cry Moon", in which the sound of clarinet, trombone, and cello beautifully engulf Sóley's repetitive piano playing. Comprised of eight songs, Endless Summer is an album that's grounded in fertile wisdom. Not just an ethereal dream of love and light, but a subtle, accumulative wisdom. One might say that one of Sóley's signature is the childlike wonder in her lyrics, and Endless Summer delivers the same wonder, but with a kind of reverence for it, for she's no longer a wanderer in a nightmare, but an enchanted lover of mystery. Endless Summer is like the Icelandic summer, a liminal, endless turning, a shift of consciousness, an endless awakening of continual brightness not without the acknowledgement of winter; it is the eruption from which the rebirth of light emerges.
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
10"
|
|
MORR 140EP
|
Sóley Stefánsdóttir follows her 2015 sophomore album Ask the Deep (MORR 138CD/LP) with a collection of intimate pieces recorded for the album, but dismissed by Sóley because she wanted the album to feature fewer guitar sounds. The dense piano ballad "I Will Find You" clearly evokes the aesthetics of Ask The Deep; "N.Y. Hotel," Sóley's first recorded cover, carefully reinterprets The Knife's brittle original; and the three other pieces rely heavily on minimalistic guitar melodies. Recorded on the Irish island Inis Oírr or in Sóley's home in Iceland in 2012; includes a few well-pitched meows from Sóley's feline roommate Tóa.
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
CD
|
|
MORR 138CD
|
Referring to the silence that returns when 2014's Krómantík EP (MORR 130CD/EP) fades out, Icelandic musician Sóley Stefánsdóttir says, "Your closed eyes slowly start seeing something much deeper and darker," and now that something is here, right in front of us: Ask the Deep is a stunningly dark and deeply personal departure after the minimalist and bleak piano compositions of said EP. Her soft voice leads us deeper and deeper into the shadowy fairytale worlds only hinted at on previous releases such as her 2010 Theater Island EP and 2011's much-praised We Sink (MORR 107CD/LP) debut album. Ask the Deep sees the bespectacled songwriter open Pandora's box -- and close it eventually. At least for now. "Have I danced with the devil?" Sóley asks on album opener "Devil," then crescendos, "Does he still love me?" Once the melodic surges of "Devil" lead to other fairytale soundscapes -- the piano no longer the main character of Sóley's music -- more and more ghosts, both real and imaginary, enter the scene. Inspired by a news story about a man who was buried alive in Brazil, "Ævintyr" marches in circles with tribal beats underneath ethereal swirls, and "One Eyed Lady" is perhaps Sóley's most minimalist lullaby yet, the beatless account of a one-eyed witch who would actually "kill for love," as the song's mantra reverberates into the void. With looped forces of gravity and swerving nods to Philip Glass, "Follow Me Down" is a brooding call to enter the distorted depths, to go beyond the point of no return, to leave the comfort zone. And it's a reminder: we still sink. Amid the flotsam and jetsam, things appear that weren't previously there -- hard-hitting drums set to Beach House vibes ("Dreamers"), a haunted church showdown with the jilted devil ("I Will Never"), even a hint of unlikely, hopeful pop ("Breath"). Taking her listeners on a journey to phantasmal grounds, her sophomore full-length is both more intricate and diverse in how it's written, arranged, and narrated. And it's even more obvious that her voice is crucial in guiding the way to that place where one can live, that safe shore on the other side of the ocean. "You must face your fairytale," Sóley sings. She does, as the music maker, but we are the dreamers of the dreams. Six-panel digipak CD includes folded mini-poster.
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
MORR 138LP
|
Gatefold LP version with printed inner sleeve. Includes download code. Referring to the silence that returns when 2014's Krómantík EP (MORR 130CD/EP) fades out, Icelandic musician Sóley Stefánsdóttir says, "Your closed eyes slowly start seeing something much deeper and darker," and now that something is here, right in front of us: Ask the Deep is a stunningly dark and deeply personal departure after the minimalist and bleak piano compositions of said EP. Her soft voice leads us deeper and deeper into the shadowy fairytale worlds only hinted at on previous releases such as her 2010 Theater Island EP and 2011's much-praised We Sink (MORR 107CD/LP) debut album. Ask the Deep sees the bespectacled songwriter open Pandora's box -- and close it eventually. At least for now. "Have I danced with the devil?" Sóley asks on album opener "Devil," then crescendos, "Does he still love me?" Once the melodic surges of "Devil" lead to other fairytale soundscapes -- the piano no longer the main character of Sóley's music -- more and more ghosts, both real and imaginary, enter the scene. Inspired by a news story about a man who was buried alive in Brazil, "Ævintyr" marches in circles with tribal beats underneath ethereal swirls, and "One Eyed Lady" is perhaps Sóley's most minimalist lullaby yet, the beatless account of a one-eyed witch who would actually "kill for love," as the song's mantra reverberates into the void. With looped forces of gravity and swerving nods to Philip Glass, "Follow Me Down" is a brooding call to enter the distorted depths, to go beyond the point of no return, to leave the comfort zone. And it's a reminder: we still sink. Amid the flotsam and jetsam, things appear that weren't previously there -- hard-hitting drums set to Beach House vibes ("Dreamers"), a haunted church showdown with the jilted devil ("I Will Never"), even a hint of unlikely, hopeful pop ("Breath"). Taking her listeners on a journey to phantasmal grounds, her sophomore full-length is both more intricate and diverse in how it's written, arranged, and narrated. And it's even more obvious that her voice is crucial in guiding the way to that place where one can live, that safe shore on the other side of the ocean. "You must face your fairytale," Sóley sings. She does, as the music maker, but we are the dreamers of the dreams.
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
10"
|
|
MORR 130EP
|
10" version. Includes an 8-paged full size booklet with illustrations and sheet music for piano.
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
CD
|
|
MORR 130CD
|
Limited CD packaged in a 10" sleeve, including a full-size booklet with illustrations and sheet music for piano. Ever since the release of her 2011 debut album We Sink (MORR 107CD/LP), 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 on Krómantík were written while studying -- and the first track 'Stiklur,' 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 We Sink." 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."
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
2LP
|
|
MORR 107LP
|
2020 restock. Limited second edition now including three bonus tracks (no longer has a vinyl etching); housed in a gatefold sleeve with printed innersleeves. This is the first full-length release from Iceland's Sóley Stefánsdóttir. The bespectacled multi-instrumentalist from Iceland had been around the world and back with her band, Seabear, when she finally discovered her own vocal skills. Even though Sóley sings non-stop in private, creating a musical backdrop to pretty much everything she does, it just took her a while to get used to the sound of her own voice. It's the sound of this voice that's at the very core of her intricate compositions, tracks that flare like a bunch of magic lanterns, taking shape, growing hazy, flaming up once again, then moving on. Sóley sans Seabear is basically a storyteller who has come up with her very own wonderland. Meet her on the street and she seems rather introverted; yet, she's far from shy in this self-created musical sphere, a sonic realm she freely expands, stakes out, reinvents, turns upside-down. Throughout the album, Sóley spins one yarn after the next; at one point, unfortunate "Smashed Birds" have to give their feathers for a new dress, while the guitar, making a special appearance, sets the tone. Elsewhere, she focuses on the moment when a dream is exposed as such, this time over a huge sonic expanse drowned in reverb. Song after song, the former student of composition manages to combine seemingly disparate elements with stunning ease -- a snap of her fingers and a click of the tongue. After Theater Island, 2010's 6-track EP, Sóley presents an album full of rhythmic, makeshift creatures, of handclaps hidden in the undergrowth, tempting us to join in. These tracks are sometimes incredibly catchy; amazingly quirky at other times: think cardigan-folk from the northern hemisphere, think Joanna Newsom minus her harp, or the CocoRosie sisters circa 2004, but clearly better-trained and less crooked. In other words: her voice, those loops moving around like wooden toys, and finally the piano -- that's the backbone, the essence of her compositions; at least until some unexpected element appears. Includes mp3 download code.
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
CD
|
|
MORR 107CD
|
This is the first full-length release from Iceland's Sóley Stefánsdóttir. The bespectacled multi-instrumentalist from Iceland had been around the world and back with her band, Seabear, when she finally discovered her own vocal skills. Even though Sóley sings non-stop in private, creating a musical backdrop to pretty much everything she does, it just took her a while to get used to the sound of her own voice. It's the sound of this voice that's at the very core of her intricate compositions, tracks that flare like a bunch of magic lanterns, taking shape, growing hazy, flaming up once again, then moving on. Sóley sans Seabear is basically a storyteller who has come up with her very own wonderland. Meet her on the street and she seems rather introverted; yet, she's far from shy in this self-created musical sphere, a sonic realm she freely expands, stakes out, reinvents, turns upside-down. Throughout the album, Sóley spins one yarn after the next; at one point, unfortunate "Smashed Birds" have to give their feathers for a new dress, while the guitar, making a special appearance, sets the tone. Elsewhere, she focuses on the moment when a dream is exposed as such, this time over a huge sonic expanse drowned in reverb. Song after song, the former student of composition manages to combine seemingly disparate elements with stunning ease -- a snap of her fingers and a click of the tongue. After Theater Island, 2010's 6-track EP, Sóley presents an album full of rhythmic, makeshift creatures, of handclaps hidden in the undergrowth, tempting us to join in. These tracks are sometimes incredibly catchy; amazingly quirky at other times: think cardigan-folk from the northern hemisphere, think Joanna Newsom minus her harp, or the CocoRosie sisters circa 2004, but clearly better-trained and less crooked. In other words: her voice, those loops moving around like wooden toys, and finally the piano -- that's the backbone, the essence of her compositions; at least until some unexpected element appears.
|
|
|
|