Last year, I wrote about Swedish-born and based, singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Sofia Härdig, who with the release of “Streets,” the first single off her two part EP The Street Light Leads to the Sea added herself to a growing list of Swedish artists that have seen international attention across Europe and North America. And as a result of a growing international profile, Härdig, who is considered Sweden’s “rocktronica queen of experimental music,” has collaborated with Grammy Award-winning acts The Hellacopters and Bob Hund, Boredoms and Free Kitten‘s Yoshimi P-We and has opened for Lydia Lunch and Belle and Sebastian‘s Stevie Jackson.
Interestingly, The Street Light Leads to the Sea was recorded with handpicked musicians, who were known for their improvisational skills, and each musician was encouraged to improvise on the rough sketches that Härdig brought in whenever and however they felt fit. As the Swedish singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist explains in press notes “I find beauty in flaws and that which is not perfect is what excites me, I love the unusual, the unexpected, untrained and unplanned . . . ” And as you’ll hear on the EP’s latest single “Sitting Still,” the material possesses a raw and gritty urgency as slashing and angular guitar chords, wild squalls of feedback and rapid fire drumming are paired with Härdig’s punchy delivered vocals in a tense and anxious song that captures a narrator, who’s at odds with herself and her conflicting emotions, thoughts and desires — and does so in a way that feels and sounds like the interior conversations we all have at some point or another. Sonically, the single much like its predecessor still manages to sound as though it were influenced PJ Harvey but equally influenced by Nine Inch Nails and Earthling-era David Bowie, complete with a swaggering, anthemic hook.
