Sjofn's PLAYLIST

The Sjofn album "Secret" - It's blowing my mind! One of the most remarkable albums of the year. Absolutely amazing stuff! This music is of the highest quality. It deserves to be enormous. 14th Best Album of 2010. Mark Whitby (Dandelion Radio DJ / John Peel Radio)

Alaskan singer/songwriter Sjofn’s debut album, Secret, currently available through UK’s Parallax Sounds, showcases her skill at song crafting. Her simple guitar strumming or drone-like picking and clear little-girl voice set the tone for this album. The title cut, “Secret,” and “Let Me Be” are naked tracks with just Sjofn’s voice and her solo guitar work.

Most of the songs are equally naked and somewhat simplistic, but Sjofn is able to complete a thought and deliver that with skill. “Work Song,” with its banjo, washtub bass, and Paul Monsarrat’s clarinet is an odd combination. But it is characteristic of the creative risks Sjofn is taking with this album. The addition of Paul Monsarrat’s clarinet on “Hey Ho,” “Vagabond,” and “Ordinary Girl,” in particular, is a musical leap, without dropping into jugband or klezmer. It’s an unexpected touch that slips the work into something other than standard folk or Americana and well into Sjofn’s own creation.

Besides’s Monsarrat’s clarinet, he also plays banjo, tin whistle, and washtub bass. Christina Brown also assists on washtub bass, Leif Ericson adds fiddle, and Jesse Gunn plays electric guitar and fatcat strings. Their skills are most noticeable in “Preacher’s Son,” where Sjofn’s guitar and vocals are enhanced by the addition of Leif Ericson’s mournful fiddle.

But it is in “Missouri,” a breakup song, where the full band’s talents shine. This is only one of two tracks on the album that have backup vocals. It also has more production that any of the others, including Monsarrat’s clarinet but also two guitars, an electric guitar, and also shaker and a few licks from a hand drum. Very nicely done. So Sjofn can create multi-layered arrangements. She just chooses not to most of the time.

Sjofn does experiment. There are two cuts on the CD that I would simply call theater pieces. Married People” begins with a monolog by Sjofn and ends with one line repeatedly sung. It’s very brief. The last track on the album, “Ahh” tells a story though sounds such as walking out of the rain, wolves, a door opening and closing, a heartbeat, glass breaking, a scream, a shot, then a rewind. What follows is a mix of sounds that don’t seem to have much to do with the first group of noises. But it’s very intriguing.

All of the seventeen songs on this album are very short. In fact, the whole album is only 44 minutes long. There are no long instrumentals or elaborate poetic rants. But what is there is interesting to listen to and that’s saying a lot. Instead of mimicking a lot of the fluff that’s on disc, Sjofn has chosen to use a simpler vehicle and let her songs, her voice, and unusual instrumental choices carry her work. It’s really a bold idea. It’s no wonder then that Sjofn has been in demand at folk festivals all over the globe. It will be interesting to see what else she will pull out of her bag of tricks in future albums.

Review by Janie Franz

Sjofn - Secret

It’s sometimes all too easy to dismiss an album on first listen and so it proves with Secret by Sjofn, I stuck with it through my initial disappointment and was rewarded with an album that is heartwarming in it’s simplicity on the ears, despite some lovely flourishes throughout.

Sjofn and her band (Mountain Mission) have conjured up an album that is at times desolate and sparse, yet also radiates a sense of warmth through both the guitar and her vocals. The overall feel is folky with an earthy weariness to the lyric, befitting her home in the Chugach Mountains of Alaska.

This is worth a purchase.
Beat Surrender Rating: 3 stars out of 5.

It's not too hard to imagine a clarinet in a folk song: There's something about the instrument's soft, rich tone that supplies a sort of visceral warmth, adding shading and texture without overwhelming the arrangement. In Sjofn's debut full length CD "Secret" Paul Monsarrat allows the clarinet to do all the work of a typical band. Sjofn's own work is beautifully sparse and light with vocals and guitar. Monsarrat gives additional heft with his clarinet, especially in the soaring solos.

Sjofn is a charmingly unassuming singer-songwriter who lives in Alaska, but calls Iceland her home. As a performer, she has a voice so naturally quiet that she almost does the opposite of projecting her voice — she seems to sing inward, in a way that gives her music unmistakable intimacy. Though "Whiskey" is by far her most popular song, her vulnerability makes her an ideal match for the clarinet's mixture of grace and warmth.

..If you’re not already swamped with minimalist Alaskan folk, here’s an addition to your collection you might want to consider. Apparently named after the Norse love goddess, Sjofn is a singer-songwriter who calls the Chugach Mountains of southern Alaska home and, like any self-respecting artist, is touring Iceland and Greenland this summer. Sjofn’s music brings words like simple, unadorned, and unpolished to mind, but it also has a specific and yet ethereal quality which invites serious thoughts on the subtle distinctions between those terms. Without a doubt, though, Secret is an album of small, unassuming and often bewitching music, not one to recommend unconditionally but undoubtedly an intriguing work as well as an insight into a cold, alien place.

Secret‘s cover implies that this is a one-girl-one-guitar record, rough-hewn from the atmosphere of those mountains. Certainly Sjofn’s plaintive acoustic is the dominant instrument here, but Paul Monsaratt’s clarinet also plays an unexpectedly key role, dancing quietly above the strumming. Percussion and a few electronic touches round out the sound instrumentally, but the most genuinely interesting sonic element on show is Sjofn’s own voice. One part American country drawl, one part singular Alaskan mystique, it’s distinctive but can take some time to get used to. In fact, these unadorned vocals and songs recall early Dylan, even if song titles like ‘Ordinary Girl’, ‘Let Me Be’ and ‘Work Song’ accurately indicate that Sjofn’s lyrical focus is on smaller things than the truths blowin’ in the wind; she prefers playing on her porch to anywhere else, after all.

Ultimately, although Sjofn’s origins and the idiosyncrasies they bring with them are fascinating, Secret is held back by its somewhat unvaried sonic palette which, so heavily reliant on a few ramshackle elements, tends to make the 44 minutes it lasts feel too long. The best five or six songs here would make a wonderful EP, stoking excited expectation of a more varied LP, but strung out to full-album length the fatigue can set in after the first seven or eight of the seventeen tracks on offer. Despite this shortcoming, Secret remains an interesting album and is no doubt worth a look for fans of folk from unusual climes.

Sjofn: Secret (Parallax Sounds, 2010)

Sjofn is a folk singer-songwriter from Alaska and Secret is her debut album. I had some doubts when I first received the album, but sometimes you better hit the play button before starting to form an opinion. Based on the cover I didn’t expect this to be my kind of stuff, but in the end it was definitely my kind of stuff. Minimalistic and simple folk music, but with very thoughtful arrangements and well crafted songs. Sometimes Sjofn’s music reminds me of Rose Melberg’s solo material. Maybe if Rose moved to Alaska and started playing folk songs on her front porch it would sound something like this

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