Music
I am an independently released singer-songwriter under the artist name Soma Saloli. My career as a performing artist started in my teens, where I was a regular in the small circuit of singer-songwriter nights in basements bars and local festivals in my native Dutch dune city The Hague, and began recording in 2006.
Over the course of years, picking up influences as life took me from the Dutch blonde dunes to the sun drenched Californian Central Valley, to the winter-darkened Baltic archipelago of Sweden, to the rugged Atlantic Irish coast, music became my chosen art form to express admiration for the landscapes around me, the relations that shape me, and the marvellous yet irreconcilable complexities of life.
So far this has led to three independent releases. My 2017 debut album 'The Long Way Home' chronicles a decade of an artist and her music ripening together. My 2018 EP 'Red Road', an artistic collaboration with producer M'Gilvry Allen, celebrates first steps in a new land and old friendships enduring. My latest 2020 single, 'This Is Where My Power Lives', recorded and produced over three summers with help of many musician friends, is a tribute to the marvel of a mother’s love.
The Long Way Home
The 2017 summer in Sweden was the onset of a creative surge where three more songs were recorded, and recordings from as far back as a decade were mixed down. The magnetism of the project steadily increased, drawing in sound engineers, photographers, designers, music distributors, and crowd funders in a surge towards the fulfilment of a ten-year-old dream.
This independent release emerged, encapsulating the journey of the long way home, chronicling a decade of an artist and her music ripening together. It speaks both to the unique and universal journey: ripening from child to human, in pursuit of the personal power that can fulfil childhood dreams, and through it becoming who you’ve always been. Enjoy, here’s to dreaming!
Red Road
In the summer of 2018 a friend from California came to visit on the North Antrim coast, armed with fiddle and studio mic. For two sunny days we locked ourselves inside to record my latest song, Red Road, featuring his virtuoso fiddling and backing vocals. The end result is an EP with the Red Road single, as well as M’Gilvry Allen’s dance remix of the recording.
Soma Saloli’s earthy voice and fiddle harmonies by M’Gilvry Allen join forces to recall the steadfastness of first steps in a new land, while echoing the green undulating glens of Northern Irish countryside and its cliff-lined Atlantic coast. On the B-side, a dance remix by M’Gilvry Allen resamples the melodic elements of the single into a rhythmic celebration of friendship and homecoming.
This Is Where My Power Lives
In ‘This Is Where My Power Lives’ Soma Saloli and her friends spin a line once spoken by her mother into a moving silken fabric of soothing instrumentation and ethereal choir arrangements, in an attempt to distill in song the bond between a mother and daughter.
Recorded and produced over three summers, and with the help of many contributing musician friends, this song is a tribute to the marvel of a mother’s love.
Live music video from the release concert of The Long Way Home.