Matt Connarton Unleashed: Sofia Gillani

That is wy n without you now, Sofia Goalani and that is the newest

single, and we're gonna play something more of hers in a little bit after

we talk. But now hopefully she's with us, because sometimes when we skype

with people across the pond, it doesn't always go smoothly. Sofia, are

you there? Yeah, I'm awesome, awesome, I got nervous. You

said this was your first time using Skype, so you are now officially initiated

as a Skype user. By the way, so am I saying your name

correctly? Yes? You are Sophia okay, wonderful and it's Goalani. Yeah,

okay, just making sure, very good. Yeah, I really like

the track. It's catchy. And we're also gonna play a little bit later

after we talk for a little bit. We're gonna play Levels, which I

believe was your previous single, which I also really really love, so great

stuff. Whereabouts are you? Where are you from right now? I'm I'm

sorry in England, so like the countryside bit of England? Yes, very

very nice? Is that is that where you're from? Originally? I was

actually based in London originally, but now I'm sorry at the moment, for

the summer. Oh okay, okay, why for the summer? Is it

just better to get out of the city. I just love the countryside,

man. I always, you know, like to think. I think it

makes me think clearly when I'm in the countryside and you know, I can

see family and you know, see all the pets that we have and stuff.

It's nice, nice to reconvene after like being in a city for so

long. Yeah. Yeah, does it? Does it help you creatively?

Do you find yourself writing more music when you're when you're there and able to

kind of relax and get away from the city. Yeah, I think the

hustle and bustle the city is great. But also when you're like in that

really calm mindset like sitting in a field or just doing really simple activities like

walking like for fun, it's like, you know, oh, I can

really take this time for myself and think about what I want to write about,

what I want to produce. So it definitely does give me fresh perspectives

and messages I could put my songs. Yeah, yeah, I can understand

that. Even you know, here in the United States, a lot of

people will tell you, like, you know, we're less than an hour

away from Boston, and I've had a lot of musicians from Boston or musicians

I've talked to from New York City who you know, they love being in

the city and the energy of it and being around all these creative people and

whatnot. But sometimes you just have to get out to kind of clear your

head, and that's when some real creativity can can sort of come in.

Definitely, I think with the with the city, it's very diverse. There's

so many different sounds, so this is great for like that music community.

But when you want to really kind of produce music and write and just kind

of concentrate on yourself, I definitely think that the countryside is the way to

go. Yeah, now is Wyn How long has that been out? That's

relatively new? Correct? Probably like one or two months old? Oh okay,

baby love My Love Wyn. It's one of my favorites. Yeah.

Yeah, has that been played on American radio before? Now? Not really?

Actually it's one of the first. So thank you for supporting me.

Excellent, excellent, No, happy to do it. Now. Do you

have a full album out or are you just releasing singles at this point?

Well, at the moment, I am releasing singles, but I'm putting them

all, all the singles that I've released and nine few extra ones into this

project piece. It's, you know, such a cute little it's not an

album. I would say, it's like a project of all the songs I've

already done, like just a recollection of my starts music. And I've been

doing a few HMB performances. I've got a few coming up later this year

in basing Stoke, Brighton, Winchester. It's gonna be cool. And I've

already done some just now in working in Guildford and in Portsmouth, which was

really cool. It's interesting, how, you know, we live in a

time where people musicians use a number of different approaches in terms of release music.

And a lot of the people that I talk to now, you know,

because I'm old enough to remember when it was a standard thing. You

know, you put out an album and then release a series of singles.

But now what a lot of musicians are doing and it sounds like this is

your approach is releasing a series of singles which eventually become an album. So

the process has become kind of inverted. But I think the advantage to doing

it that way and I don't know if this is part of your strategy,

but I feel like the advantage of doing it that way is, you know,

you're continuously giving your audience new music instead of making them have to wait

and wait. And you know, we do live in a culture now with

technology, with the Internet and social media and everything, where you kind of

have to feed that machine right in order to maintain that engagement with your audience.

I think, you know, the music industry at the moment is very

very hustle and bustle, so when you do release those singles, it's always,

you know, something new. I feel like an album for me right

now, if I did it completely new music and just release an album,

it's really, in my opinion, heavy, unless it's got like some sort

of storyline or if I really feel like I need to like release a full

album. But you know, it's very formal, and I think doing singles

is fun. It's playful, and with the Digipak album and the record Stow

performances, it's just a nice way of me being able to put out loads

of music and stuff and still be able to constantly express myself, but not

have it in that so you know, package album, you know, kind

of way right right. And also with releasing singles, you know, just

one at a time, you can really kind of give each single the full

attention that it deserves. You know, you can make a video, you

can make a lyric video, you can make a you know, a full

produced, fully produced video. You can you know, you can do all

kinds of things with it. You know, you can use it however you

want to in terms of social media, Whereas when you put out an album,

you can't really you know, you'll release singles from an album, but

you can't give every single track on that album the full attention from a marketing

standpoint, from a social media standpoint that it may deserve. So I think

it makes sense. Yeah, and it gives it a bit of breathing room

as well. When I released a single, it's like the only thing I

talk about, the only thing I've promote, like physical copies are important.

Is it's all digital, but you know with the digitback and the tiny little

project with all the singles in it. But when I do release single of

the single, it's nice to be able to promote that one single my social

media and talk to people about in interviews and you know, just give it

the room it deserves. So yeah, definitely agree. You referred to physical

media as well, So I'm curious here in the United States physical media is

still very much a thing. Vinyl has really had a resurgence, especially over

the past decade. I think twenty twenty two, vinyl for the first time

actually outsold CDs. But we have guests on the show too who still put

out CDs, not not all, some of them don't. But I'm curious,

what is it like there is is physical media still an important part of

all of it? And do you do you release these songs as CDs as

well or have you ever put out vinyl or do you just focus on doing

it digitally? I right now at the moment, I'm it's all like digipack

album pieces. It's like it's just CDs. But we are definitely thinking of

branching out, you know, inter vinyl, But right now, I just

we're doing it one bit at a time with the digipass. To me,

you know, it's I think it is very important in the UK as well

to have that kind of fun CD physical copy because when people see it,

they're like, oh, you know, this is you know, a part

of an era of your life. This is part of your news. And

while we could definitely branch to other things, I do want to take it

one bit of a time because as I'm always you know, on this journey,

vinyl is important, CD is important, but right now it's just you

know CD. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Where do you record? Do

you do? You work with a producer or I mean a lot of people

now again, we live in an era where you can do it all yourself

if you want to. What's your uh, what's your approach? What's your

process? In terms of recording, So, my dad was a musician,

so he would release all the time. Yep, he was, and so

we had that. That's originally what kind of started our music career. We

had that equipment at home and so starting with the career, we would literally

just do it in our conservatory. We'd set everything up and just record at

home. In terms of producing, I have worked with producers before, actually

good friends with them. But you know, the songwriting process, most of

the process actually when creating my songs is you know, individuals, Me and

I do most of it at home. Wow, Well, you had a

great start, right, that's pretty cool having a dad who is he still

active musically. Your father, Yes, he is actually, but he's you

know, he's given a great deal of support to my music career as well.

He's always kind of motivated me and he's taught me very valuable life lessons

in music as well, which have definitely helped me progress and you know,

do things such as release a dig you pack and yeah, that's wonderful to

have the support of your family, that's that's great. And of course,

you know, to come from a what what about your mom? Is she

also a music holder? She's not us, but you know she's always the

number one, biggest bad films, all that good stuff. That's great,

that's great. No, I'm sure they're I'm sure they're very proud of you.

And it's great to have that foundation. I think that that, you

know, because not everyone has that obviously, So I think that's, uh,

that's remarkable. What what's kind of the future? What's the future trajectory

for you? Are are you going to obviously? So this this single is

still pretty new. Do you have another one uh that you're planning on releasing

soon or are you still just kind of focused on continuing to promote WI.

I'm definitely gonna give w y N the summer, but in September, I'm

actually thinking of releasing a new single. It's called I'm very very excited for

it. It's actually it's it's quite different from this song. It's more like

methodical, a lot more harmonies. It's you know, something I've been working

for actually quite a while. So I'm excited for that to come out.

Excellent, excellent. Well, we'd love to be the first American radio station

to play it when it's ready. If everything fantastic, fantastic, We love

to do that. So, uh, that's great. Are you playing out

a lot? Do you play a lot of live shows? Yes, actually

some have been jet packed. I've been doing festivals. I just actually finished

Hazel my fringe festivals, playing main stage. That was so fun. Yes,

doing a few London gigs, all that good stuff. Really I'm playing.

But you know now, I think for July and August, I'm gonna

enjoy the summer, and then later on down the line, I'm going to

be doing some more record store gigs, just on that grind. Yeah,

excellent, excellent. Is that is that still a big thing there? It

seems like in America maybe maybe in big cities they still do it, but

it seems like in America, you know, record stores, I mean they

still exist certainly, but you know the you know the in store promotions where

artists coming and play live in record stores, it seems like that's kind of

a thing of the past to some extent. Is that still really popular there?

Oh my god, definitely, because it kind of works like two ways.

You do a performance in the record store, you're not just promoting yourself,

but like people can come into the store listen to it. I feel

like record stores nowadays, people like especially teenagers, because you know, we

all want to go back to the old stuff. When we go into record

stores and we hear those live performances, it like reminds us that we are

all part of a community. And so me doing those record store performances not

only like you know, it's fun to meet other people who love like music

in general, love promote my music, but it just creates this like really

beautiful culture of just promoting music, listening to new genres, and exploring the

community. I think in your video for Levels, if I'm not mistaken,

I think there's a it looks like you're there might be a clip in there

of you performing at a record store? Am I Am I wrong about that?

I feel like there was something in the video for levels where it looks

like you're in a store. Yeah, I think I am at one point.

I mean, we wanted levels to be like this really fun yeah,

article, article, gig, you know, well on those different levels,

so that probably is something in there, but I did. There were so

many gigs in that video I remember doing, like the one with crazy lights,

and we just wanted that one to be really playful. Yeah. Yeah,

No, it's a cool it's a cool video. And I really love

the song too. That's the one that we're going to play at the end

of our conversation. Great, great track, catchy as hell. It was

after I listened to it, it was just stuck in my head for like

hours, like leveled levels, levels very good, Well, Sophia, What

should people know about how to find you online? And and obviously you know,

uh, we have we have listeners here in America who I'm sure want

to check you out, keep up with what you're doing, get access to

your music and so forth. What should people know about how to find you

online? So I'm literally on majority of social media platforms on Instagram, I'm

Sofia dot Anissa dot Glani and on like, YouTube, Facebook, Spotify or

stream platforms, I am Sofia Galani. So yeah, stay, especially the

Instagramlani go on that it will be the most updated social media platform for any

gigs coming up. Any new songs, the one in September. There you

go, excellent, excellent. Hey, and before we play this, is

there anything we should know about this song? Levels, any any anything special

you want us to know about it. It's just it's such a vibe.

I think when I made it, it was just for fun and it was

just you know, it was I did write it in the spring, so

i'll, you know, go going into summer. Everyone was excited, so

you know, listen to it. Just bot man, it's got that vibe.

I know what you mean about, you know, in the spring,

going in the summer. Definitely, definitely Sofia Galani. We'll let you go

and we're gonna spin this. But thank you so much for talking with us

today. And yes, definitely when the next single is ready, let's do

that. We'll have you back on. We'll we'll spin the track and really

looking forward to that great stuff. Love what you're doing. But thank you

so much for joining us today, thank you for having me. It has

been so lovely. All right, Sophia, thank you bye bye bye bye.

All right. That is Sofia Galani all the way from the UK,

skyping in and let's give this a listen. This is called levels

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