I was spoiled for choice in trying to find a sample track from this, the debut album from Simone Tang, because she is evidently an inveterate story teller.
Firstly, a little about her.
She’s the guitarist for Danish star Ida Laurberg and bassist for the artist Ki! She’s also a trained musician and actress, a graduate of the Royal Academy of Music, Aarhus who has composed music for several Danish and international films. Simone has appeared in various films and TV series and even won the Chinese version of an Oscar, called a Golden Goblet!
Quite a CV, but this is a new direction for her as a stripped back solo performer armed only with a guitar and her voice.
On other tracks on the album, which was recorded live with no retakes, she sings separate family-related songs about her sister and her father, both of them tributes, and on another she reflects on life’s big questions through the eyes of a young niece.
Common to most of them is the ultra minimalism of simply voice and acoustic guitar.
I selected ‘Miss Lila’ as the sample track because it is ridiculously endearing, from the very first note.
It’s the story of a perfectionist; a young lady whom I guess is her alter ego. In reality she is singing about herself. Everything, present and future, is planned out to the nth degree but “she’s too busy feeling blue”.
The moral seems to be carpe diem and let tomorrow look after itself.
Sometimes it isn’t easy to find an artist to compare a subject with but in this instance it definitely was. Simone could be the Danish version of the now sadly retired Emmy the Great while vocally she lies somewhere between the aforementioned Emma-Lee Moss and Regina Spektor.
If that sounds delightful, it is.
Find her on:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SimoneTangN
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tangsimone/
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2294527/ (for film buffs).
