Victoria and Vancouver Island have a lot of musical talent, and Victoria Buzz wants to highlight some of the best and brightest local artists and bands.
Every Monday, there will be a fresh ‘New Music Monday’ article to help people find and support local artists and bands that are up-and-coming, well established or hidden gems!
For this endeavour, Victoria Buzz has partnered with our good friends at CFUV 101.9 FM, UVic’s campus radio station, to find and select the musicians and bands for this regular column.
This week, Sofia Miller is the New Music Monday highlight!
Sofia Miller released her first solo record, Prologue, around this time last year and since that time she has been busy working in every facet of Victoria’s music scene.
Miller has been playing a myriad of shows in town as well as touring out to Winnipeg, producing records for friends, playing in new projects and hunkering down to record and produce herself.
On Prologue, she explored many themes of her life over the past seven years through soft, somber tones on some tracks and a full rich sound with the support of a backing band on others.
Now, Miler has released a different type of record—one that she did not know if people would want to hear.
i follow, it guides is her latest release and is an experimental, instrumental 11-track record, which Miller describes as a sort of meditative soundtrack to something that does not exist.
“There’s an artist called Brian Green who makes instrumental music which I really, really love, and when I heard that record I was like, ‘oh there’s space for this kind of music,’” Miller told Victoria Buzz.
The new instrumental album features songs written over the past two years while spending time in Leipzig, Germany; Kelowna; and Victoria.
“[in Leipzig] is where I made the majority of this album, without intending to make an album—it was more just a daily recording practice I had when I was there,” said Miller.
“It really helped me break out of perfectionism, and then when I came to Victoria I made some stuff that ended up on this album too.”
Breaking away from perfectionist tendencies was the aim that drove Miller’s recording practices, which once again came up while she was working on the production of the record.
“Over the past two years I went back and forth between fixing and re-recording stuff and kind of making it everything I would want it to be—which is funny because that’s where perfectionism comes in,” she laughed.
“But whatever, I had a lot to learn while making it and that was the point. I had to learn some new skills to get it to where I wanted it to be.”
Miller chose to highlight the song “opus” off of i follow, it guides.
She says that “opus” is her favourite song on the album and it’s because the song just came out of her in a way that she hasn’t experienced often.
“It’s a bit true of every song in this project and it’s why the album title includes ‘i follow, it guides,’… and ‘opus’ was just not premeditated,” Miller explained.
“I recorded stuff completely without thinking, just really in the zone of presence I think, and then I woke up out of it and was like, ‘what the heck was that,’” she laughed.
Miller says that upon listening to the recording she was awe-struck as it sounded like nothing she had made before—she was shocked at where the song went once she allowed herself to just zone out and be present with the music.
“It just came out of me and was very intuitive, and that’s where the title comes from,” Miller continued.
“Every song kind of has that element to it, but Opus was like, such a surprise to me that I could make something like that just by following my gut and my instincts.”
Preview “opus” and the rest of i follow, it guides below:
To listen to i follow, it guides in its entirety, find the album and the rest of Sofia Miller’s catalogue on Bandcamp, Spotify or Apple Music.
This summer, Miller is taking a short hiatus from music as she was on her way to go tree planting when interviewing with Victoria Buzz.
However, she has big plans for when she returns, refreshed and renewed.
Miller will be heading back into the studio with a new batch of songs and some grant funding to record her sophomore vocal album, she is also in a new project called Ghost Darling and she plans on producing a record or two for some friends’ projects.
Her next shows won’t be until July, when she will be performing a few City of Victoria gigs at Ship Point and Fort Commons.
To keep up with Sofia Miller, her shows and new music, follow her on Instagram.
Related:
- New Music Monday: Sofia Miller harnesses confidence in debut album ‘Prologue’
- New Music Monday: Coup D’état debut album explores themes of loss and grief
- New Music Monday: Sweet Delirium blends jazz, shoegaze and R&B on debut album
- New Music Monday: Diploids collaborate to create their brand of experimental jazz
CFUV is a non-profit campus and community radio station that plays a ton of local music of all kinds across Vancouver Island. If you like to support local music they are an amazing resource with a plethora of new local tunes in their arsenal.
“They play my music all the time, which is cool, and ask me to play shows and all the people who work there are so nice and supportive,” Miller said.
“It feels really nice to get that kind of support from people who love music.”
Tune into CFUV 101.9 FM on air or online!
Let us know what you think of Sofia Miller in the comments below.
