ASTRID SONNE : great doubt
EYE : honolulu/saigon
3 Ottobre 2023
MARIA W HORN & SARA PARKMAN : funeral folk
18 Marzo 2024“Her expression moves freely within the realm of electronic experiments side by side with melodic curiosity and baroque approaches”
Astrid Sonne is a Copenhagen-based composer and viola player, currently based in London. With a background in classical music, she opens up an electronic space to channel different perceptions of sensory and emotional states of being through open, melodic compositions. Balancing contrasts is a reccurring theme in Astrid Sonne’s work, where alternation between repetition and renewal is used as a means of expression. Her compositions consist of everything from synthesizers to choir samples and viola sequences, exceeding genre definitions yet paying homage to sources of inspiration, be it a Danish choir tradition or various noise soundscapes. Furthermore, Astrid Sonne has engaged in creating commissioned works, varying from ‘Ephemeral’, a piece for choir electronics and viola presented at Berlin Atonal 2018, to site-specific compositions for the old ruins under the Danish Parliament and a stretch of the Copenhagen Metro.
“Great Doubt” is the third full length LP by Danish composer Astrid Sonne. Throughout her acclaimed discography, Astrid Sonne has been carefully crafting different moods through electronic and acoustic instrumental endeavours. On “Great Doubt” this skill is refined, now with the distinct addition of the composer's own vocal in front. 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.
Escho is here to document moments of spontaneity, file the transitory and offer new, unusual and vibrant sounds from Denmark and beyond. Founded in 2005 in Copenhagen, Denmark, Escho is a platform for music recordings and book writings.
