Simako (Denmark) – Who you are (single/future EP track)
I often wondered what songs from the children of civil servants would sound like. I can’t ever remember coming across an example previously apart from Emmy the Great, whose father was a British official in Hong Kong if my memory serves me right.
And he didn’t do a bad job, for sure.
Simako is a Danish ‘sister duo’, Katinka and Sigrid Kamp, whose parents worked for the UN, thus ensuring that they spent their childhood living in Europe, the US and Bangladesh, which shaped both their sibling bond and their worldview.
‘Who You Are’ was released on May 16th and is the first single from their forthcoming EP, due in June.
It was written at the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, and reflects on how political and personal beliefs can drive a wedge between even the closest of relationships.
It is interesting that the press release mentions it “places the song within a new wave of modern protest music emerging across borders.”
That intrigues me because I’ve remarked occasionally in these pages that protest music seemed to have vanished off the face of the Earth despite numerous causes which, on the face of it, call for such music. (Excluding ‘climate anxiety’ – I don’t count that).
Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez, Patti Smith et al aren’t suddenly going to reactivate with the same vigour they had or even at all, so it’s good to know that Denmark is playing its part.
There is something of a conflation between their objectives with this song which appears to zero in on, at the same time, both global politics and personal relationships.
In this particular example though they do come together because the complex relationship between the people living in Russia and Ukraine has ensured that family relationships have been fractured in both countries, each side often being supported within a single family unit, which may be miles apart in either country and sometimes even family members pointing guns at each other, figuratively speaking and even literally.
“Brother’s head is spun/He comes undone/He points his gun”.
Short, staccato lyrics are the order of the day, representative of battleground orders I guess, while the song is relentless save for a short and quite manic guitar solo which could signify the end of another Russian arms factory.
Musically it is an obscure mélange of R&B, pop and EDM which on paper shouldn’t really work too well. But this isn’t paper and it does work; very well.
Find them on:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Simako.music
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/simako_music/
Sol Heilo (Norway) – Round & round (sample track from the album Indigo Star)
Eight years after her debut album ‘Skinhorse Playground’ and just short of four years since her second EP, ‘Solstice’, Sol Heilo returns to the fray with ‘Indigo Star’, her second full length album.
The first album’s obscure title required an explanation from her and that is going to be the case with this one too. I’m not ruling it out but I doubt it is a reference to an American street clothing brand, nor a paean to the 18-year old Boston born singer/dancer/actress/social media influenza.
The trouble with Sol is that you never really know for sure.
Her albums and EPs demand your full attention and I have given them that in the past. But unfortunately ‘Indigo Star’ can’t get the time it deserves and I’ve paid close attention to it in what time I had in order to suggest a sample track. (And we have reviewed a couple of the tracks previously).
Firstly, a little about the album. She says it is one “like I’ve never done before; all real, all live” (from a non-stop three day party by the sound of it) and the deluxe version of the album even includes a bit of chatter involving her and her band, between the tracks.
Sol does not have to provide anything in the authenticity department but her steadfast fans, who have had to go long periods between releases and live shows – especially foreign ones – as she raised a family, will appreciate that.
The style of the selected track, ‘Round and Round’, is different from that of many of the others, which tend to be of an Americana (in fact you could argue outright Country & Western) nature, with plenty of smartly plucked banjo on show.
One other exception is ‘Black Crow Cloud’, a product of the darker side of her impressive imagination. Links to the review for that and for ‘Further down the road’, which I interpreted as the next stage of her journey after that of ‘Walk a little further’ on the first album, can be found at the end of this one.
‘Round and Round’ which we reviewed in April 2024 as a single but I’ll say some more about it here, is on first hearing the standout track, a lyrical masterpiece. It reads like a piece of poetry (try just reading it without the music) and it is very hard to put music to poetry and vice versa.
I don’t know if Sol writes all her own songs, I did come across an English guy resident in Oslo who assisted on ‘Skinhorse Playground’, and the lyrics to ‘Black Crow Cloud’ were written by Jason Samson Breland,but the selection of words and phrases is just so, whoever writes them.
On the face of it the song is simply a statement of the complexity of relationships and how it is sometimes the unexpected sides of those relationships that hold them together.
It’s the way though that she invokes Mary Magdalene – a complex character if there ever was one – that sets her aside from other writers.
The song can be summed up in the final two lines:
“There’s a world between us though you’re next to me, my catastrophe”.
And even there, in those last two lines, there is a conundrum offered up. Who or what exactly is the catastrophe?
Is it a reference to Katastrofe (Petter Bjørklund Kristiansen), the Norwegian writer and singer who became her manager and label boss as she moved away from Propeller Recordings after he met her on the set of ‘Hver gang vi møtes’ the Norwegian TV reality show?
And if so, in what context?
Sol has changed the nature of her sound. Her band has been scaled down since 2017 from a big band (and it was, with a keyboard player, two guitarists and a drummer in addition to mainstays like multi-instrumentalist Hanne Mari Karlsen) to the point where as far as I know it is just her, Hanne and Briton Dave Burn, with Sol often doing her one-man show busking routine, playing guitar/banjo and a specially made drum kit that sits on her back with the hi hat and bass drum cords tied to her feet.
I do not think that has made a fundamental difference to her appeal. It has perhaps helped push further the influence of the lyrics although I do hope she is able to produce that bigger sound that was evident on some ‘Skinhorse Playground’ tracks when full scale touring resumes (as I assume it might do now?)
Lastly, a quick word about her artwork. While this is a ‘Pot Pourri’ piece with more than one review, I dropped the Pot Pourri image in favour of this beautiful one of Sol’s, which Pope Leo, if he has any sense, will put on a wall in the Sistine Chapel.
So there we have it. I’ve said it before about Sol Heilo I’ll repeat it. One of the most talented individuals I’ve ever come across and yet one who has yet, I reckon, to produce her finest work and receive the plaudits she deserves.
On Saturday 31st May she will be playing songs from the new album around Oslo city, see social media pages for details.
Find her on:
Website: https://www.solheilo.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/solheilo
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/solheilo/
Previous reviews from the album:
