Sophie Zelmani

The story of Swedish Singer/Songwriter Sophie Zelmani could have been written in a novel. Her father bought her family a guitar when she was fourteen; she started writing songs after her father died soon after that, then after recording some demos in a studio she was working as the tea-girl for she sent them to some record labels and got signed to Sony Music Sweden with them. It’s the kind of rise that most singer-songwriters would commit ritual sacrifice for but Zelmani never needed anything other than her songs and her unmistakeable voice. It’s almost odd how she got off to such seemingly immediate commercial success after that. Her songs are stark, moving and memorable but their lyrical focus as well as her conversational singing voice (that borders on spoken word from time to time) lends themselves to a live atmosphere incredibly well. It’s a pretty riveting site, and the feeling of being in a packed auditorium, each and very soul there hushed into awed silence to keep up with what she’s saying is one that isn’t going to be matched any time soon. Truly lyrical female songwriters are a rarely picked up and promoted on a scale like this, if we can support women like Zelmani by seeing her and artists like her live as much as we can then we’ll have more incredible music in the world, and that can only be a good thing. Make Zelmani your first port of call though, you will not regret it!