Sasha Siem's new single 'Proof' was available on a ltd vinyl run for Record Store Day (April 19), before a full release on May 18.
Cambridge and Harvard grad Sasha Siem is a classically trained multi-instrumentalist, who creates incredibly dramatic and technical music with a contemporary pop spin in a similar vein to Joanna Newsom, Agnes Obel and Andrew Bird. The sub-2 minute 'Proof' is a taster of Sasha's debut album, which is coming later in the year and, following 2 sold out shows at The Royal Opera House last year, Sasha's just confirmed a gig at Village Underground on June 10 where she'll be joined on stage by her producer Valgeir Sigurðsson (Sigur Ros, Bjork, Bonnie Prince Billy, Feist).
Sasha Siem will release a limited vinyl run of her new single ‘Proof’ on April 19, 2014 (Record Store Day – via Gearbox Records before a full digital release on May 18. As well as the studio version of ‘Proof’, the single will feature a live version recorded in New York. Anglo-Norwegian Siem has also announced a headline show at London’s Village Underground on Tuesday June 10 where she will be joined on stage by her producer, Valgeir Sigurðsson (Sigur Ros, Bjork, Bonnie Prince Billy, Feist). The live-date will be Sasha’s first London show since performing at The Linbury Studio Theatre at the Royal Opera House and at the Kings Place Festival in 2013.
Produced by Valgeir Sigurðsson and recorded at Reykjavik’s legendary Greenhouse Studios, ‘Proof’ – with its bewitchingly complex rhythms and swirling drama – is an astonishing collision of Siem’s contradictory influences: her fascination for likeminded lovers of innovative song-writing such as Andrew Bird and Joanna Newsom, and her youthful love of classic crooners such as Sinatra. There’s also palpable joy Siem finds in words themselves: the assonance that characterises ‘Proof’, for example, where she sings of being “numb to the gun/ But the dumb silky touch of your thumb/ Leaves me sore with the stitch, the itch/ The etched inch of you”.
Siem began playing the piano at the age of five, picked up the cello soon after, and by the age of 11 found herself studying at London’s Guildhall at weekends, with the path she was to follow throughout her academic career now clear. By her mid 20s – having studied at Cambridge and, later, Harvard – she had composed for, amongst others, the London Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra, while in 2010 she won a prestigious British Composer Award.