Maija Sofia announces new album True Love on Tulle; hear ‘Four Winters’
The Galway singer-songwriter and musician Maija Sofia has announced her second album True Love, the followup to 2019’s debut album Bath Time.
True Love will be released on Tulle on September 1st (the label home to Fears and M(h)aol) in digital and vinyl formats including a limited edition red vinyl exclusively in independent record shops and Bandcamp.
Lead song ‘Four Winters’ is a song that explores “destructive relationships and the mysticism of the natural environment” using harp, synths, strings and drums primarily, with the result being a song that feels like it’s whisking you away into its lair.
“I gave him four winters /
for beautiful bruises and splinters /
I made myself thinner /
disappeared right into the ether /
the man is gone /
but he took something of me with him /
I knew he was wrong /
I knew every time I kissed him”
Watch a video shot in Dublin for the song, directed by Anna Heisterkamp, who also took the photography for the album.
Maija Sofia is playing Whelan’s, Dublin on 28th September.
About True Love
True Love was written during a period of deep transformation in Maija’s life, when she left the city for the south-west coastline, living in solitude in a 300 year old former-yacht club for several months over the lockdown winter. It was here that Sofia found herself alone and still for the first time in years, in a place where she could finally reflect on the instability and overwhelming love and loss that had shaped her early twenties.
Evolving through states of reflection, metamorphosis and mysticism, the songs began to take shape as a kind of séance-act, a form of esoteric communication with absent friends, former loves and the various memories and ghosts that hung in the empty space around her.
The resulting album is a work of exorcism and enchantment, presenting a rare blend of eloquent lyrical craft and explorative musicianship with a deep devotion to mystery. The songs on True Love ask what happens when you devote yourself entirely to something or someone else, what happens when we risk love, and when that love goes all the way wrong, how can we make sense of the chaos left in its wake?
Diverging from the introspective folk world of Bath Time, Sofia says “it was the first time I was free to make music without any fear of being overheard, the songs became louder, I was experimenting with my voice in different ways and the lyrics became more direct, more unselfconsciously emotional.”
Recorded between SIRIUS arts centre in Cobh and a studio in Dublin, Maija wanted to preserve the atmosphere of the moment and many of the songs were tracked live, with first takes ending up on the final record. Recorded by Chris Barry who also adds bass, Maija is also joined by Solamh Kelly on drums, harp by Méabh McKenna, saxophone and clarinet by Ryan Hargadon, Theremin by Ruth Clinton and Pedal Steel by David Tapley.
Maija Sofia
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Maija Sofia returns with the haunting song ‘O Theremin’ & a cover of ‘Wonderful Life’
