Music
The best kept secret in music
Press
This band has no press
Discography
No official releases has taken place, but there are recordings available at www. Voolife.se (look for "Sofie Björck" under "artists", there you can also find some more recent listener-reviews in Swedish).
When listening to mediafiles in this presskit, please be understanding to that no recordings with acts full band has been done yet, due to geographical and monetarian reasons. Files show samples of craftsmanship of all three players, although not all at the same time. Just imagine if they could all come together!
Photos
Feeling a bit camera shy
Bio
In March 2000 Sofie Björck, born and raised in Sweden took a plane and landed in the USA, Los Angeles. She had never previously been in the USA and knew nobody there. The goal was to get inspiration for music, to write new songs, and to meet new people.
Once in the USA Sofie wrote many new songs and had a string of truly new experiences. She soon teamed up with her soon to be very good friend guitar player Kevin Kmetz who joined her project. American-Japanese guitar virtuoso Kevin Kmetz holds a bachelor in composition from California of the Arts and is currently on tour with his band "God of Shamisen"(www.godofshamisen.com)
he has also been recording and performing with the bands Estradasphere, Fishtank and Secrethiefs. (Never heard of those bands? Oh mi lord! You're missing out! Go check out their webpages, pronto!).
Kevin and Sofie played local gigs with her music in LA at coffeehouses and smaller venues and gained some wonderful reception by the local audience, yet in a very small-scale underground setting.
Once Sofie could no longer sustain her visa at her current school she still didn't want to go back to Sweden, instead she left to check out New York.
In New York she attended yet another music school (a conservatory of jazz) and had a string of other truly new experiences and met even more people as she begun to cut her teeth in the local scene there. She also wrote more songs. Once she could not find a way to renew her visa again she returned to Sweden in August 2003.
Coming back to Stockholm, at first Sofie was living in a tower close to famous music establishment "Mosebacke", ("The Mosebacke water tower", present in one of her songs), and was making money busking in the street, getting e-mails for her e-malinglist. She wrote even more songs, this time in Swedish again.
She also teamed up with a new member of her band: Mozambiquian percussionist Celso Paco that recently had been arriving from Mozambique, Africa to attend an education in afro- and folk music at the Royal Academy of Music in Stockholm. (Celso Paco is currently being employed by the Royal Dramatic theatre in Stockholm as a theatre musician. He is educated at the Ethnomusicology Program at the Zimbabwe College of Music and has shared stage with Youssou Ndour, Remi Ongala och Rossi (WOMAD, 1991), Tribut to Miles - Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancok, Toni Williams, Ron Carter and Wallase Roonie (Skeppsholmen Jazz and Blues Festival, 1992), Hugh Masekela och Oliver Mutukudzi (Chicago Jazz Festival, 2000), Ale Möller & World Music Ensemble (Falun Folkmusik Festival, 2001). Celso has recorded with amongst others: Ghorwane - Majurugenta (Real World Studios of Peter Gabriel, England - 1993), Pazedi - Music from Moçambique (Caprice Records, 2001), Tucan Tucan - Xiluba the brothers Frank Paco and Tony Paco (Xiluba Music, 2003).
Sofie and her new drummer have been rehearsing regularly and played some occasional gigs at small underground clubs in Stockholm.
Sofie's genre of music is somewhat unique and could be pigeonholed as "Ecto music" ("Ecto music" meaning "the Other genre"). Artist Happy Rhodes was the inspiration for the creation of the ecto mailing list and the "Ectophiles Guide To Good Music". Ecto the mailing list has been going strong since June 1991 (born from a Kate Bush mailing list).
Back when ecto first started they designated the term "Ecto music" as a genre to encompass people like Kate Bush, Happy Rhodes, Jane Siberry, Peter Gabriel and others who didn't quite fit into the Rock/Pop/Alternative/whatever categories. Hence the "Other" genre, which is Ecto.
Ecto music is being described by "The Ectophiles guide to good music" (http://ectoguide.com) as "Music that has the combined qualities of artistic individuality and euphonic beauty", a definition that fits very well into Sofie's aesthetical goals for her own creation and as to describe the allure from her two childhood sources of inspiration: artists Todd Rundgren and Sally Oldfield.
In terms of booking and promotion this kind of act should probably be handled with the mixed strategies for a traditional folk music- or world music-act and that of a pop-act.
There is no press available since the act up to this date only has existed on an extreme underground level, but down below are two listener reviews from back in the years of 2000-2002.
READ WHAT PEOPLE HAVE SAID ABOUT SOFIE BJORCKS MUSIC:
Dear Sofie; one of the greatest musicians i have known,
Hey this is Taisei. A little shy boy from Japan. /---/.
I really loved Simon & Garfunkel and still love them. Even though i love to play and create the 90's-like music...i love the 60s the most. Your music reminds me the 60s', happy but sad music. I really love to listen to your music whenever possible. Whatever bad happened to me or whenever i want to move on...I listen to the fundamental music of my respects and you're one of them. I LOVE TO LISTEN TO YOUR MUSIC. /----/.
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