SOFA music

02/08/2024

Det totalt kompromissløse og spennende lille norske plateselskapet SOFA serverer oss en dobbelt dose herlig og annerledes musikk fra Norge og Canada.

03/06/2024

Very nice review in Blow Up (in Italian) of the new House of Gold record: “definitely among the albums of the year”

10/05/2024

The brilliant debut of Montreal-based House of Gold is out today on LP, CD and all digital platforms! House of Gold is a quartet that blends quiet melodies and songwriting, chamber music, minimalist folk song, improvisation, jazz harmony, and early music influences into an immersive and embracing sonic experience. Composer, drummer, and singer Isaiah Ceccarelli has built a repertoire of songs around his original texts and intimate music, inspired by his years of composing new chamber music for various ensembles, drumming for jazz, pop, and folk bands, singing in early-music choirs, and travelling the world as an improviser and composer. The music is brought to fruition by the talents and input of multi-instrumentalists Katelyn Clark, Eugénie Jobin, and Frédérique Roy. Beautiful cover image by Eleonore Huisse with art direction by Stephen O’Malley.

19/04/2024

New House of Gold single out today! Their gorgeous debut album will be out May 10. on LP and CD with cover image by Eleonore Huisse and art direction by Stephen O’Malley.

Sofa is proud to release the debut album of Montreal-based band House of Gold, a very special group playing American composer Isaiah Ceccarelli’s songs and compositions. House of Gold is a quartet that blends quiet melodies and songwriting, chamber music, minimalist folk song, improvisation, jazz harmony, and early music influences into an immersive and embracing sonic experience.
 
Composer, drummer, and singer Isaiah Ceccarelli has built a repertoire of songs around his original texts and intimate music, inspired by his years of composing new chamber music for various ensembles, drumming for jazz, pop, and folk bands, singing in early-music choirs, and travelling the world as an improviser and composer. The music is brought to fruition by the talents and input of multi-instrumentalists Katelyn Clark, Eugénie Jobin, and Frédérique Roy.

01/04/2024

Four out of five stars for both Muddersten's Triple Music and Kim Myhr's Hereafter in Il Manifesto (IT)

28/03/2024

SOFA is proud to announce the release of Spektralmaskin, a collaboration by the Norwegian experimental musicians Jo David Meyer Lysne and Peder Simonsen. It will be out on LP, CD and DL on May 31. Check out the release on our bandcamp or webshop, it’s a real beauty.

This capacious, shimmering record owes its title to a sort of prospecting: the process of sliding e-bows—small magnetic motors of adjustable speeds used to sustain strings, here of Lysne’s own design—along guitar strings to produce harmonics. As these harmonics can occur erratically, the technique rewards the musician patient enough to scoot the e-bow about the string, waiting for the delicate sounds to crest. Amidst a recent wave of interest in tuning, Spektralmaskin both nods to such musical forebears as La Monte Young and Harry Partch and, with its use of new music-making tools, suggests a fresh, playful future for harmonic experiments.

25/03/2024

Chronique : KIM MYRH and KITCHEN ORCHESTRA "Hereafter" (Sofa Music)

19/03/2024

Amazing review of Hereafter in the new edition of Jazznytt

Wonderful full page review of Hereafter, my new album with Kitchen Orchestra, in last Jazznytt by Arild R Andersen:

“I 2022 foreslå album Sympathetic Magic, og for meg ble dette det albumet som hevet Kim Myhrs arbeider inn i det betydelige og store. Musikk uten sekundær agenda. Det er den samme følelsen jeg får og oppfatning jeg har etter å ha lyttet til Hereafter. De to albumene har forskjellige ståsteder, men de veiene som går gjennom dem, er tydelig skiltet av Myhr. Den ukategoriserbare fasongen på musikken passer ørene mine nærmest perfekt. Temperamentet, formgivingen og koloritten får plass øverst ved bordet. På side D fortsetter musikerne å balansere det innbydende med det motstandsvillige. Fortsetter å høres ut som et band. Skaper tilstand som settes i bevegelse. Jeg får lyst til å bli. Vil snu vinylen og starte på nytt. Sette opp volumet og bli innkapslet. Akkurat sånn som jeg pleide å gjøre da jeg først oppdaget musikk».

08/03/2024

House of Gold announces their debut album on SOFA due out 10. May 2024. A first single from the album; “Of no particular importance”, is now out on all platforms, and the release can now be pre-ordered through our website or our Bandcamp.

House of Gold is a quartet that blends quiet melodies and songwriting, chamber music, minimalist folk song, improvisation, jazz harmony, and early music influences into an immersive and embracing sonic experience. Composer, drummer, and singer Isaiah Ceccarelli has built a repertoire of songs around his original texts and intimate music, inspired by his years of composing new chamber music for various ensembles, drumming for jazz, pop, and folk bands, singing in early-music choirs, and travelling the world as an improviser and composer. The music is brought to fruition by the talents and input of multi-instrumentalists Katelyn Clark, Eugénie Jobin, and Frédérique Roy.

House of Gold will be released as LP, CD and DL with art direction by Stephen O’Malley and a beautiful sleeve photo by Eleonore Huisse.

https://www.sofamusic.no/album/house-gold

01/03/2024

Muddersten's Triple Music is out today, and shipping from source!

3 track album

28/02/2024

28/02/2024

Great feature on Kim Myhr's record with Stavanger Kitchen Orchestra over at New Sounds / WNYC !

Hear music by guitarist/composer Kim Myhr, guitarist and composer Terje Rypdal, Sámi singer Marja Mortensson, bass trumpet/tuba player Daniel Herskedal, and doom-jazz trio Splashgirl.

23/02/2024

19/02/2024

Hereafter will be out this Friday and is now shipping from source. All orders of the Hereafter 2LP made before Friday will include a free LP of Kim Myhr's Al Your Limbs Singing.
Order here: https://sofamusic.bandcamp.com/album/hereafter

02/02/2024

Hi there! it's Bandcamp Friday and we continue the Special Offer from last BC friday: Pre-order the new Kim Myhr & Kitchen Orchestra 2LP and we will include a LP copy of his 12-string solo album All Your Limbs Singing free of charge!

11 track album

30/01/2024

A new single from my upcoming album «Hereafter» with Kitchen Orchestra is out today. VII is the longest track on the album, and has a sustained and somber tone. It connects with the previous single VI, which makes a continuous 20minute section. I’m quite proud of it. Hereafter consists of two continuous parts, and I imagined it a bit like a morning and evening raga. 2LP and CD release February 23. on SOFA music.

Cover image: Eleonore Huisse
Art direction: Stephen O'Malley

Mix: Kyrre Laastad
Master: Micro Moose Berlin

Stavanger Kitchen Orchestra

24/01/2024

Få med deg Fredrik Rastens Six Moving Guitars på Sentralen 25. januar!

22/01/2024

Say hello to the new member of the SOFA team, Andrea Giordano! Very happy to have you onboard, Andrea!

10/01/2024

Hereafter will be out 23. February!

08/01/2024

 photo by Maciej MoskwaMusic that doesn't seem to follow the very formulaic shapes of most genres of music is kind of like one of the homes you see from whimsical architects, they stand against convention, a radically curved wall may not be good for the placement of furniture but it is good for the...

06/12/2023

Listen to Ep. 108: Fredrik Rasten – Lineaments from Soundmaking. Composer and guitarist Fredrik Rasten presents his latest disc, Lineaments, out on SOFA Music, as well as other work reflecting his fascination for just intonation and related sound phenomena.

01/12/2023

It’s Bandcamp Friday and we have a special offer for today only. Pre-order the upcoming Kim Myhr double-LP Hereafter, and we will include a vinyl version of his solo 12-string guitar album All Your Limbs Singing free of charge, and without extra postage costs.
(offer only valid when ordering the LP version of Hereafter). https://sofamusic.bandcamp.com/album/hereafter

28/11/2023

We are very excited to announce our release number 100 today, Kim Myhr’s gorgeous ‘Hereafter’ written for the 15-piece Stavanger-based ensemble Kitchen Orchestra. An excerpt from the upcoming record, VI, is out on all platforms today.
https://sofamusic.bandcamp.com/album/hereafter

“Hereafter can be seen as a meditation on mortality and transience”, Myhr explains. “It was written at a time where the prime minister of Norway told the country’s population that ‘you have to be prepared to lose someone dear to you’. It was like taken out of Tarkovsky’s “Sacrifice”. This atmosphere set the tone for Hereafter, which was written in 2020. For me, this piece is about the acknowledging and acceptance of disaster”.

During the months of composing the music, Myhr kept humming the song sung by Salamat Ali Khan in Satyajit Ray’s classic film “Jalsaghar”, in the scene where the son and wife of the main character dies in a storm. For Myhr, the song resonated with the mood of the moment and acted like an undercurrent for the making of Hereafter. “There is a haunting sadness to that song, but there’s also something very grounded about it. The way the singer looks straight at the protagonist. There is no escaping this. That was the feeling.”

Hereafter is a stunning piece of music that ranks among Myhr’s best works yet. It is released as a gatefold double-LP, CD and DL, with a beautiful cover photo by Eleonore Huisse and art direction by Stephen O’Malley. Out February 23.

03/11/2023

It's Bandcamp Friday again and we are running our last sale in a good while, as we have lots of new releases coming up in 2024. 30% off everything with code bcfridaysale https://sofamusic.bandcamp.com

10/10/2023

Releaseconcert for Fear Of The Object at Kunstnernes Hus on 31.10, featuring Kjell Bjørgeengen with Aimée Theriot-Ramos, Ingar Zach, Inga Margrete Aas, and Audun Strype.

09/10/2023

Upcoming release in early 2024, a new album from the great trio Muddersten.

28/09/2023

New signing. We are very excited to be releasing the debut record of Montréal-based band House of Gold next year. A really unique group playing Isaiah Ceccarelli’s beautiful songs and compositions.

Isaiah Ceccarelli: drums, voice, synthesizer
Eugénie Jobin: voice, synthesizer
Frédérique Roy: voice, piano, synthesizer
Katelyn Clark: organetto, piano, synthesizer

More info to come soon

Photo: Manoushka Larouche

27/09/2023

New signing. We are excited to release the beautiful debut record of Jo David Meyer Lysne and Peder Simonsen in early 2024. More info coming shortly. Photo: Letizia Cigliutti

17/09/2023

SOFA labelkveld på Ultima Oslo Contemporary Music Festival 19. september! Kjell Bjørgeengen kommer for å snakke om Fear Of The Object, og Propan kommer også. Vi vil også til å spille musikk fra kommende utgivelser. Sentralen klokka 22.