Tone Glow 120: Astrid Sonne

An interview with the Danish artist about her new album 'Great Doubt', meeting and collaborating with ML Buch, and finding ways to continually challenge herself

Astrid Sonne

Photo by Conrad Pack

Astrid Sonne (b. 1994) is a Denmark-born, London-based composer, violist, and songwriter. Her debut album, Human Lines, was released in 2018 on the Danish record label Escho. In the years since, she has consistently and gradually expanded her work to push beyond the electronic compositions of her first LP to include vocals, guitar, and now something resembling pop songs. Great Doubt, which is out today, is her first album since 2021’s outside of your lifetime, and finds Sonne embracing the role of a songwriter, folding lyrics into arrangements that are at once uncanny, intimate, and funny. Joshua Minsoo Kim talked with Sonne via Zoom on January 18th, 2024 to discuss her childhood in Bornholm, meeting and collaborating with ML Buch, and embracing humor on her new album.

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Joshua Minsoo Kim: What have you been up to today?

Astrid Sonne: So it’s 11 o’clock here in London and I’ve been working on a remix that I have to submit in two weeks’ time. I’m finding it quite difficult. It’s one of the first remix tasks that I’ve had so I’m just trying to figure out how to do it and make everyone happy (laughter).

Do you feel a lot of pressure?

A little bit. Audio processing is really close to how I work, and I like taking a piece of sound and trying to get something new out of it. In that sense, making a remix is quite natural. But then there’s this thing where it needs to have some connection to the original track, so I’m just trying to find the right balance.

What city were you born in?

I was born in a small island in Denmark, it’s called Bornholm. I wasn’t really born in a town—it’s out in the countryside. Then I moved to Copenhagen when I was 16.

For the first sixteen years of your life you were on this island. What things do you miss about Bornholm? What was it like there—was it beautiful?

It is quite beautiful, actually. It’s quite special because Denmark is completely flat and nature there is really nonexistent, but this place is a mixture between Swedish and Danish nature, in a way, so you have rocks and it’s a bit more hilly. I would say that I sometimes miss the quietness and space. Where I grew up was really remote so it’s quite different from London. It couldn’t be more of a contrast, actually. The island itself is not tiny—it’s got like 40,000 people—but the school I went to, my class… I was family with like three or four (laughter). It was quite small.

Can you talk to me about your family proper? Did they foster creativity?

I think they’ve always been really, really supportive. I don’t come from a musical family or background. My dad is an accountant and together they do Christmas trees. That’s their main thing. I come from a farmer family in many ways. There wasn’t that much music around, but I think when my mom was a kid, she really wanted to do music. She wasn’t able to, so when she had kids, it was this classic story where she wanted to give that opportunity to me and my sister. It was really chill—we went to the local music school.

Did you ever help out with the Christmas tree business?

Oh yeah, I’ve been helping a lot.

What does that entail? I’m also just thinking about this space you used to live in—it’s relatively quiet, at least compared to London. And you’re dealing with nature directly and also with your parents’ business.

I’ve spent a lot of time just doing physical work or playing around. There weren’t that many things to do. I didn’t help out much when I was a kid but when I was older, I would help out in the fields and with the local sale. I’d be practicing my really awful mallet skills (laughter). Just bits and bobs.

You mentioned that you went to a local music school. How was your teacher?

In Denmark, in the same way that you’d go play football in your spare time, you have music schools where there are a couple teachers. You have a solo class and you might play with someone in your same school. There was only one viola teacher so you weren’t really spoiled of choice, but that may have been a good thing. Because it was so tiny, there wasn’t that much division between whether you were playing classical music or contemporary music. I really enjoyed that. It wasn’t until I got older that I saw the strict division of, “Are you playing classical music or not?”

When did you first recognize that division?

Another classic Danish thing in our school system is that we go to school until 9th grade, which is when we’re about 15 years old. Many people then go to a boarding school for one year called an efterskole. You can go into your interests, you can play sports or theater or gymnastics or whatever. And so I went to this music school, and that was the first time I realized that this was something of its own. It was very structured around this tradition. I was kind of enjoying it at this point in my life because someone was setting rules and structure, but there were a lot of things I didn’t like.

Growing up, I had a lot of freedom. My parents weren’t really monitoring me. It was a safe environment; if the bus didn’t come you’d just hitchhike home. Stuff like that. I never had that many strict rules and boundaries about my doings, and going to this boarding school, suddenly they were very fixed. “You have to go to bed at this time!” There were a lot of things I just wasn’t used to. I remember feeling quite frustrated, but that’s also classic teenage behavior.

I’m trying to get a sense of the timeline here. What year were you born?

I was born in 1994. I’m 29 years old.

So you were in this boarding school and felt this complete contrast between the freedom you had beforehand. How did you go from this boarding school to recognizing the sort of music you wanted to make, the sort that ended up on Human Lines (2018)?

It was quite a bumpy road. When I finished off the boarding school, I moved to Copenhagen and went to a music high school and, at that time, I was pursuing a classical career. That was the main thing. But when I turned 18, I really hit a wall and I wasn’t enjoying it. I didn’t have any epiphanies around that time and felt really constrained. I didn’t feel like I could express myself in the way I wanted to. I dropped out of the course I was attending and then I had a couple years where I didn’t really do music. I was a bit all over the place. I finished off high school, then I had two years of working in a nursery, playing in a jazz band, doing a project management course—I was really confused.

I had a good friend at the time who was doing music in Ableton and them introducing it to me was quite a big thing. I could do my own thing without anyone else telling me how to do it. I think that was just a big release of finally finding this tool.

In hindsight, do you feel like all these different experiences—project managing, playing in a jazz band, working at a nursery—shaped the way you think about art and life? Do you feel like this time was wasted?

I definitely don’t feel like it was a waste of time. Oh my god, I realized I’m giving you a full presentation of the school system in Denmark (laughter). But moving to the UK, it’s kind of like America in a way—you just finish off stuff and go to a university, go on to a job. In Denmark we have these breaks, which I think is really good. From high school to university, it’s quite common to take a year or two off to figure out what you wanna do. I think it’s really good because then you don’t rush into the first idea you have. You’re just so young and things are very open and life can take on many directions.

The jazz band, especially, even though I wasn’t really into the music (laughter), it was led by this old-school jazz saxophonist. I think he really wanted a string player as part of the band so he took me under his wing and taught me how to improvise. And playing classical viola never gave me the tools to just play something. I always had to play, like, a scale. I wasn’t free. I think having that experience and spending so much time—just me and him—has meant improvising has become really special, and it’s something I’ve used ever since. It gave me the confidence to say, “I am a musician and I can play.” I can sound bad or good—whatever. I just need to trust myself, and I don’t need to be scared of making mistakes.

How did you decide to play the viola?

I started doing lessons when I was six. I played the violin at first and I had classes together with other people so it wasn’t solo—there were two or three other people in the class. There was one other girl, and she was a good friend of mine when I was a kid, and she gradually got better than me. I was like, this needs to stop (laughter). I can be a bit competitive if I’m being honest with myself. So I was like, I need to figure out something else, so I started playing viola. It felt more like my instrument. There is much more competition when it comes to violin, and with viola it’s more chilled and I was into that.

When you first started getting into Ableton, were you looking at tutorials or were you just diving in?

I was only diving in, which meant that everything took so much longer but, in a sense, I felt like I made my own methods instead of copying techniques. And tutorials in general, it’s very like (in the voice of an Ableton bro on YouTube) “Hey dudes! Let’s do this!” I never felt a connection to them and I got pulled away from that. It was just not for me (laughter).

With Human Lines, a song like “Real” is really gauzy. It sounds like the music is coming from a neighboring room, and I was thinking of that in relation to “Life,” which has a science-fiction veneer. These two titles even, when I first heard the album, I kept thinking about this idea of the weirdness of existing. And I feel like that idea comes through in your subsequent records and especially in your newest one. I’m wondering how you decided to approach the songs on Human Lines. How did you know when to add strings on a song like “Alta” and when to hold back? What was your relationship with your viola at the time?

Thank you so much for the kind words, it’s such a nice contextualization. I’ve never heard that before and I really like that. My relationship to my viola was really difficult. I had to divide my practice and that’s still something I struggle with. With the new album, Great Doubt (2024), I can tell that I’ve been pushing myself to combine things. When I first started doing music, I’d be quite obsessed with one sound and I told myself that it’d be the only sound I’d use throughout a track. It’s been difficult for me to orchestrate and to see a sound for what it is, to see how different sounds can relate to one another. I think especially around the time I made Human Lines, it was really, like, “It can only be a string track or it can only be an electronic track.” I wasn’t trying to build a bridge between these two, and I think that was quite characteristic of much of my previous work. The same goes for my voice. It was either I’d do acapella things or do something instrumental. It was very divided. I’m not exactly sure why that is… but…  I’m trying to do something about it (laughter).

Do you feel bad that these things are divided? Is that something that tugs at you? That you feel you shouldn’t do?

I think at the beginning. It’s funny how, at times, you restrain yourself for no particular reason. Also just singing on top of a track, like I’m doing on the new album, I remember I had a friend—maybe you know her, ML Buch.

Oh yeah, I love her album Suntub (2023) from last year.

So we went to the same university and were in the same class. I just remember her saying, “Why don’t you try…” because I had been singing at the same time as playing viola. I had been singing loads, I had been singing in churches from when I was 13 to 22. It was a part-time job. And she was mentioning it to me and I was like, “No way. I’m never gonna do anything with my voice!” And now here I am (laughter).

That’s nine years of working at a church as a vocalist. What was that like?

It was fun and challenging. And embarrassing at times (laughter). Just in terms of not having slept much from Saturday and getting up Sunday morning. Most of the time it was great. I started singing in a church on the island and when I moved to Copenhagen, I sang in a small church in a suburb there. And I’ve worked at different places. It’s quite a good fee. It was Sundays with a small choir, and I also did funerals and baptisms.

Is there anything you feel like you really gained from those experiences? Like, if you hadn’t been a vocalist at churches for nine years, what would be missing from Astrid today?

I definitely wouldn’t be singing as loud as I do (laughter). I sing very loud, just naturally. And it’s so funny—I started working with a friend of mine and she sings so quietly. And because we’re both recording vocals, she has to have a lot of gain on her mic and I have to turn mine off. I’m so used to singing to [fill up] the church, to help people sing. That’s the thing that would be missing.

I love that. You mentioned you were in these choirs. And then you have a song on Cliodynamics (2019) called “Strong, Calm, Slow” and you’re with multiple vocalists there. What was it like to introduce vocals and sing with others on that piece? You hadn’t necessarily used vocals on previous records, so why then? And it’s a closing track too, it feels like a statement piece.

It was quite daunting. It was definitely something that I had to get over. I was presenting a new piece at Berlin Atonal in 2018, so it was quite a while ago. I had a brainstorm with one of the curators about what to do and I was like, “Oh, maybe I could do a choir piece.” They seemed up to the idea. I started working on it but I had no tools or methods for how to write it. I remember the process as being quite difficult (chuckles). It’s so interesting—I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately because there’s a choir in Denmark that has asked to perform that piece, as well as another piece of mine. It’s so amazing that it can have that life, where someone else can interpret it. I’m really looking forward to that.

Has that happened in the past? Where something you’ve composed has been performed by others?

It’s the first time. Actually, that’s not true. I’ve been writing music for ensembles, which I guess is kind of the same. But this is the other way around because I was originally part of the performance too and now I’m really letting go and having someone else make their interpretation. I feel really ready for it.

I’m excited for you! It’s a new era.

It’s so nice. I feel insanely privileged. I feel like my music has a life in many different spheres, within the classical world and the experimental electronic world, and then there’s also the songwriting thing. I think that’s been a priority of mine since I started: I don’t want to be boxed in, I don’t want people to say, “This is what you’re doing.” I want to be able to do as many different things as possible. I really like being versatile. And it’s amazing to see this unfolding.

This is really beautiful to hear because of what you mentioned earlier about your childhood and feeling restricted by the boarding school. Perhaps when you were younger, your parents and environment allotted the space for you to be free, and now you’re older and having to make choices for yourself to continue in this way. I love that you value that, and I can sense the excitement just in your manner of speech. It’s overflowing to me and I’m getting excited just hearing about it.

I really love the way you’re connecting the dots. It makes sense.

You had the album outside of your lifetime (2021) and there is singing on that album with tracks like “Fields of Grass.” And that also has this introduction of the guitar. I like that your albums progress in this way where there’s constant unfolding. What sort of things do you remember about that entire period?

We never framed it this way but it is, of course, a COVID album. It was made primarily alone and in the studio, with me feeling remote and detached from many things. My work life completely changed. The day we had our lockdown in Denmark, I was supposed to travel to the States for a tour and had all of that planned. When I listen to the album now, there’s a solitary mood but it doesn’t feel too sad. It sounds accepting of things, in a weird way.

Were you trying to make the most of the situation? Did you have that sort of mindset during COVID?

Not really, to be honest. I was not one of the people really taking advantage of the situation; I was quite passive and didn’t know what to do. For the first half of the year, I was really uninspired and all the music I did at the time was not great. I did music for a video installation by a colleague of mine and working again with other people sparked this process of working on outside of your lifetime. There is a bit of collaboration as well.

Yeah, ML is on there!

Yes, she is.

How did you first meet her?

I went to this conservatory called RMC in Copenhagen and we were in the same composition class. We’ve been friends since. And now we’re really connected—we have the same manager, the same booking agent. It’s sweet. And we’re going on tour later!

I was telling my friends about that, I was so bummed that it wasn’t happening in the US. And you’re also playing shows with Tara Clerkin Trio, right?

Yeah!

I was so jealous about those as well. I love them. So, with this album you worked with ML and also with Tobias Kropp. What things did you learn about yourself from collaborating with them?

I think the main thing I learned about collaborating is to give more freedom to the people I’m playing with. In general, it was about letting things go and experiencing their interpretation of the music instead of saying things like, “This is how it’s supposed to be.” I think that has something to do with being more inspired by a different approach, perhaps something more improvisational. And moving to London has led to a different way of working.

With the musicians that I work with now, when we started rehearsing for the live shows, I didn’t give many instructions; I just wanted to give out the music and say, “What can we do with this?” This wasn’t about not taking responsibility—I’m happy to take the lead on things—but I would also like for them to have their say for how the music should sound. And that way, they feel more involved and play better and I enjoy it more too. There isn’t this energy about what’s a mistake and what’s a non-mistake.

I realized with outside of your lifetime that everything I was trying to get away from, I was actually reproducing it. When I did “Strong, Calm, Slow,” I was not very nice. I was really strict, saying, “This is wrong, this is right.” And it’s good to be like that sometimes, but right now I’m very much in the other direction. That was a real big realization.

I love that you have this trajectory of going from something more rigid and to something more free. Where do you feel like you’re at with Great Doubt?

The headspace, wow… I was absolutely all over the place (laughter). I feel great about the album but it was a complicated process. I was feeling so much self-doubt. I felt unsure. Every time you’re not playing shows or whatever, you can really go into a negative spiral, and I think I really did that a lot. I could tell it was good that I was pushing myself to try new things, but on the other hand I felt really scared. What are the consequences of me doing this? Can I play these festivals anymore? Will people not work with me anymore? And obviously when you listen to the album you can see the progression from my other material, but when you’re the one doing it, it feels like it’s from another planet, that it’s far away.

And that’s the interesting thing about releasing music—it turns it into something else. I have a completely different relationship to the singles that are out. It’s so weird (laughter). But it’s great! I don’t think I’ve enjoyed putting out material more than I do at the moment. I felt good and confident. This feels like the album I wanted to do.

So you’re talking about the changing relationship you’ve had with the singles. Let’s talk about a track like “Do you wanna.” What is your relationship with that song now and how has that changed?

I always felt… it’s not necessarily “LOL” but to me it’s a funny track. Every time I’m with my band, it’s always like “Do you wanna… go for coffee?” And then someone always says “Do you wanna have a baby?” (laughter). Vanessa [Bedoret], who I play with, used to do it all the time. But yeah, I’ve just experienced people taking it quite seriously, or seeing the more serious side to it. And I think it’s there as well—it’s not wrong, but that surprised me. With “Boost,” the single I put out last week, I didn’t think I was gonna put it out in the first place. To me, it’s quite humoristic as well. I really like the balances and frequencies between something quite dense and serious, but there also needs to be some sort of lightness.

This album is really clarifying for me about your work. Like, I am sensing humor in your songs when they don’t have any vocals at all now, and I think that’s partially because you hear the songs with vocals and then when they get stripped away, you can really delight in the sound of a synth, or in how a drum beat sounds in the vast expanse of a space. You mentioning humor is really exciting for me, and I’m wondering if that was something you’ve always really cared about.

I was always way more afraid of it and now I feel I can embrace it. And in order to push yourself, you kind of need to go out there, in a way where you can’t always trust yourself. Or to where it feels scary. You need to do something that doesn’t always feel the best. You have to challenge yourself. Before, I really wanted to be taken seriously. And now I think there are a lot more nuances to it. Like, as much as I enjoy being serious about things, I enjoy having fun as well, like everyone else. I’m a full human being, and it’s important to have both.

Was there a song on Great Doubt that you feel was the most challenging or uncomfortable to make?

I think “Boost,” actually (laughter). And “Staying here.” With that track, it’s more pop-ish with the chords and lyrics. Going all the way with it felt daunting. You often think you can do so much less than you actually can. It’s like when you’re doing television and they put on makeup and you think it’s way too much, but when you go on stage it’s completely fine—it’s a bit like the same feeling.

With “Give my all” you’re referencing Mariah Carey. What was the decision behind that? And what’s your relationship with her music? I ask because I’m a huge fan.

I was making music for a short film and they were asking me to do a cover of “My All.” This is one of the sketches. It never made it to the film and I continued working on it, basically. And to be honest, I’ve never really listened to Mariah Carey (laughter). Like, of course I listened to that track but I’ve never had a relationship to her music like everyone else.

I think that song is a good example of something that’s funny. I love the fact that it’s a song interpolating Mariah Carey and then there are these dissonant-sounding organs.

(laughs). Yeah, it’s the contrast.

The last song on the album, “Say you love me,” feels like something more serious. With that track you introduce vocals but then they go away and you allow everything else—the strings, the piano, the beat—to carry the same mood.

This track is the most personal one. “Say you love me” started off as being just the vocals on top of the guitar loop that you hear on the song before it, “Overture.” Once I added the drums it became too much and I separated it into two tracks. There were things going on in my personal life; I had been in London for three months and I was not doing well. That’s just one of those songs and texts where it comes out of you and when it’s there, you can’t really change anything. It wasn’t so much about me sitting down and writing lyrics, it was just something I was singing during a time when I was feeling pretty upset.

I love that the album cover is just your face, which I think is a good representation of its humor. These other albums have cover art that is more “artistic,” and then there’s just a close-up of your face here. I immediately was like, “Okay, so what’s Astrid doing here?” Did you have a vision for the artwork both for the album and the singles?

My boyfriend Conrad [Pack] did the artwork. I think it’s the first time someone close to me was taking photos of me. I could tell there was a big difference; I was present in a different way. It was quite easy—we went to Greenwich and ate some food, walked around, and he took some photos. It was a nice, chill day. And they came out really great! I really love the photos. We just decided on that to be the visual presentation of the album. There’s something about the cover… the first time I saw it, I wasn’t like, “This is gonna be the cover!” I never imagined that to be the case. There’s something in the expression that is happy and weird and a little bit sad. Obviously I’m not the best person to ask because I see things that you may not see, but I like that you can read different things into it.

Is there anything you’re gonna be trying differently with your upcoming tour compared to previous performances? Are you challenging yourself in new ways?

Yes, definitely. I’ve been trying to get away from the “table performance” for quite some time. I’ve tried so many different live setups and it’s actually too much, but now I feel like there’s a configuration here that really works for me. I really enjoy working with all the other string players. It’s me, a violinist, and a cellist. We did a couple shows in November and we were sitting like a classical string trio. For the next couple of shows, I’d like to be a bit more active and actually perform a little bit because I’ve… never done that. I’ve always been hiding behind a table. I think it’s time for me to reach that next step.

And this is it!

It’s the next step! It’s not gonna be a big pop choreography thing, but I feel really awkward when I sing. I don’t know what to do with my body, so I actually decided to practice a little bit every day. I’m lip-syncing and trying to know how to move my body.

I’m excited for this next development in your practice. Is there anything that we didn’t talk about today that you wanted to mention?

I don’t think so.

There’s a question I always end each interview with, and I wanted to ask it to you. Do you mind sharing something you love about yourself?

Love about myself… hmm. (pauses). It’s so much easier when it’s the other way around, isn’t it? I have a light mind. I’m quite positive, I’m a positive person. And I love that about myself, really (heartily laughs). I think it’s really helped me through many different phases and crises, with things happening in my personal life or with my family. I also feel like working within this field is pretty hardcore. Staying positive feels like a really important part of doing what I’m doing; I don’t think I could do it without it.

Astrid Sonne’s Great Doubt is out now via Escho and can be found at the label’s website and at Bandcamp. More information about Sonne, including her upcoming tour dates, can be found at her website.

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Photo by Conrad Pack

Thank you for reading the 120th issue of Tone Glow. Table performers in shambles.

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