Quiet Sonia

Fronted by Nikolaj Bruus’ rich baritone-voice and evocative abstract lyrics – brooding, roaring and howling – and his often detailed and nuanced compositions on acoustic steel string guitar, Bruus’ playing and songwriting pays homage to introspective songwriters such as Nick Drake, Tim Buckley and Elliott Smith, and the almost spiritual or devotional quality of guitarists like Robbie Bashoe and John Fahey. As a rock band – besides the occasional chamber feel of the acoustic guitar, violin and piano setting – Quiet Sonia is also ethereal swells of fuzzed out guitars, lush synths and wheezing organs, bombastic distorted bass/drums, and layered intertwining male-female vocal harmonies (just to mention a few characteristics). 

From the lush melodic and concise pop-songwriting of The Go Betweens, Wedding Present and Hüsker Dü – tightly crafted, direct and forceful with a seemingly volcanic furious power and energy – to the warm reflective atmosphere, longer narrative-like compositional structures and dynamic intricate arrangements of Talk Talk, Tindersticks and Bark Psychosis, Quiet Sonia draws on a broad palette of eclectic stylistic influences. At times pitch-black, anxious and somber, at times hopeful, dreamy and majestic. The music, though, is always characterized by an emotional urgency; a search for musical catharsis; a wish for communicating something deeply powerful and moving, from severe sonic attacks and harsh punishing bursts of sound to ecstatic beauty and pure bliss.