She might be from a small town in Norway, but fresh-faced beauty Sigrid has a mind, attitude, and voice bigger than any other 20-year-old. With a great accent and an infectious smile, she’s impossibly cool and inspired by the artists she grew up on; Joni Mitchell and Neil Young taught her the importance of good songwriting from an early age.
Her debut single “Don’t Kill My Vibe” — simultaneously premiered and made Hottest Record In The World on Radio 1 last night — was written about the time she was put in a writing session with some middle aged who, well, killed her vibe. “They made me feel like I was in the way, like they just wanted to go home to their TVs and their kids,” she told i-D. “I totally got that they might not be excited to work with me, but they didn’t have to be rude!” If you met Sigrid, you definitely wouldn’t want to be rude. Having being treated to to a sneak peek of her debut EP, due April 3 on Island, we assure you that it’s something special. Here are 10 things you need to know about it, and her. Listen and learn!
1. She was born and raised in Ålesund, surrounded by sea and mountains.
“I remember biking around a lot. That was my thing. I miss it. I miss the nature and the sea.”
2. Ocean Sound Recordings — where Sampha recorded his album — is nearby.
“It’s on an island called Giske, which is ten minutes from my house by bike. There’s no one else there. I think that’s my dream — to buy a house on Iske and live there with my cat or something. Seriously, it would be so cool to invite people over to write music and then bike over to the studio together to record it.”
3. Her brother forced her into writing music.
“He’s a musician too. He had a show back home and he wanted me to join him on stage but told me I wasn’t allowed to play a cover. He said I had to write a song. He gave me two weeks. So I wrote a song in two weeks and performed it at the show.”
4. At 16, she signed to Norwegian indie Petroleum — the same label as her friend Aurora.
“It was going so fast and it was amazing getting the attention, it was just so hard to find time for things. I couldn’t do shows, I couldn’t do promo, I had a history test to revise for!”
5. She’s now part of the burgeoning Bergen music scene.
“I decided to move to Bergen because I like the music environment there. Oslo is where all the big labels are and where all the big shit is going on, but I like Bergen most because it’s more indie. I moved there when I was 18.”
6. Sigrid and her older sister used to have a band named after their dead cat.
“My sister and I wrote some songs together under a project called Sala Says Mhyp when I was 17. Sala is our cat. She died and we wanted to do something in honor of our her. We were a proper cat family.”
7. Her favorite film is Lost In Translation.
“I would love to meet or work with Sofia Coppola. Or Wes Anderson or Spike Jonze. I’d love to meet them. The way they film, it’s all so geometric.”
8. It’s her dream to have a song on the soundtrack of The Sims.
“We had every expansion pack ever and we loved it so much. I wanna sing a song in Simlish! Or it would be amazing to have one in the last season of GIRLS. Have you heard about SKAM? It’s a Norwegian series set in high school, like Skins, but cooler. It’s set in Oslo and I’ve got mutual friends with some of the actors. It’d be cool to get a song on that soundtrack too.”
9. She just shot her first music video in Berlin’s Treptower Park.
“It was fucking intense. We were shooting with a drone so everybody had to hide when I was doing the performance to make sure they were out of shot. So I was on my own in the middle of the park, performing to a drone.”
10. We respect her musical values.
“I guess the key thing that’s always inspired me is just really well written pop songs. Playing piano and singing whatever comes naturally is the best thing for me — the only thing that feels genuine.”
Credits
Photography Francesca Jane Allen
Text Frankie Dunn