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To say the the Swedish artist goin’ behind the name of Sol Skugga (her real name being Vikström - I wasn’t able to find out what her first name is – the artist name stands for the duality within herself; something you’ll understand when finding out the name means “Sun Shadow”) is of the creative kind, is somewhat of an understatement.
While goin’ to Vadstena Academy (where she learned clothes design and fashion) in 2001, she started designing her own modern fatasy and fetish clothes as a hobby to pay her loans, then registered the trade name Accented to print sophisticated graphics on T-shirts. Already interested in music, and at that moment in love with another woman, she made her oldest recorded song (“Ghost”, which was to appear on her second album Gardenia) in those days. She finished her Batchelor of Informatics degree in Media Informatics, Business Development, Systems Design and Graphical Design in 2003, and turned Accented in a web production company to have a part time job along with other dayjobs as a sales person. In 2005 she was hired as production assistant, webmaster & press responsible for a bikini fabrics maker and clothing design company in Stockholm. A job which would dissatisfy her thoroughly, and from which she would free herself in order to concentrate on her own projects. Having had lessons in classical music through private teachers since the age of 7, Sol had really always had other interests besides music, but eventually she took one year’s training in songwriting in 2007-2008 at the Royal School Of Music.
All along, she’d continued to write songs, and in 2006 she opened a page on MySpace where she posted the aforementioned “Ghost”. In early 2007 she was busy recording her debut album Swimming Without Webbed Toes, when guitarist Staffan Österlind (known in the first place from his collaboration with Paul DiAnno in AK47, but also from M.ill.Ion and his contributions as a guitarist, sound engineer or producer/ arranger to albums by the llikes of Merrygold, Bloom, Burning Engines, From Behind, Reckless, and the Sweden Rock Festival among others) contacts her with an offer to produce her album. He also added some real raw guitar solos and some theremin keyboard sounds to some of the songs, and has been a constant in Sol Skugga’s musical outings ever since. The album was released through Accented in November 2007.
Already a recording studio addict, Sol could be found recording her sophomore album soon after the release of her debut, and in early 2008 she invites violinist Thomas Von Wachenfeldt (a one-time guitarist for De Tveksamma, Thomas developed a passion for classical music and went back to music school for 6 ½ years to perfect his playing on the violin) to play fiddle to the song “Empty Street”. Another deep friendship was born, and the Gardenia album made its appearance in November of 2008.
In early 2009, Sol/ Accented struck a deal with Stefan Hallgren, with whom she started to run the Happy Minds studio…which is where she would record her latest album, of course with the collaboration of both Österlind and Von Wachenfeldt. The latter playing violin, mandolin and banjo on the calmer and more Folk-oriented “Burn Her”, “Sweet Lullaby”, and “Slowly Fading”…the first (Sols correction: This is Stefan Hallgren playing, its easy to mistake these guys for being the same person) playing Fender bass on most of the tracks and adding some guitar licks (intro to “Quietly Crucified”, lead guitar to “Sweet Lullaby”, and Leslie to “Simply Me”) and acoustic drums (to two songs – other drum sounds were created electronically or taken from samples by Sol). With Sol responsible for all vocals (also backings, which makes those come over quite harmonic), piano, acoustic guitar, a lot of electric guitar (even leads), electronic drums, ambient sounds, synthesizers and samples, she still saw place for a couple more contributions coming from Anthony “ScrewMaker” Mea, Jonas “Nordpol” Johansson, and two MySpace “helpers”.
Musically, Sol Skugga goes through the motions of its embodying person. Her first album contained music written in a darker period of her life, when she was surrounded by depressed people and friends, a dear one even dying. Therefore the music on that album was rather geared into a Gothic direction. With Gardenia Sol wantedto show a softer, dreamier and more romantic side of herself, with her love for Folk music in focus. The new album however, is more upbeat, and in spite of having many acoustic moments, and shows an amazing warmth al well as versatility, seeing her go through several musical moods, ranging from Electro-driven Guitar Rock (album opener “Say It” andtheensuing “So Strange”, the latter a bit softer), Folklore and Rock ballads (i.e ”Burn Her” and “Quietly Crucified” respectively), all of which have a nice “Soft-Progressive” feel (in a Pop sense) underneath, all of which with an amazing honesty in the lyrics, which relate to stuff she comes across in her life. Vocally, Sol has been compared to such respected artists as Tori Amos, Amy Lee, Regina Spector, and Kate Bush, and her music to the likes of Nine Inch Nails, U2, Blondie, Peter Gabriel, and Björk’s Human Behavior album. When listening to the (9!) songs posted at myspace.com/solskugga, I’m sure you will discover something of all these!
In conclusion, an artist whom really deserves being discovered by the public at large. In the USA, people are slowly opening up to her, with record label Cauldron Soundwerx distriibuting her latest album and organizing an early 2010 tour over there. She’s obviously also enjoying sóme success in Sweden, where music of hers has been aired on several independent radio stations and podcasts (Somojo.net has had her in the Top 20 charts since December 2008). In early 2008 Sol entered a band contest organized by Tele2 and Warner, from which she finalized as #21 out of 800 participants. Now, it’s time for the rest of Europe to discover his delightfully luscious Swedish artiste, so head on over to her MySpace page, then also check out Sol’s own website solskugga.com! Do it now, do not let the opportunity pass you by!!!
95/100 - 14 March, 2010 |
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