Sofala are one of the Melbourne acts at the moment who genuinely excite me. Fusing psych, funk and poetry I feel confident saying they are doing a sound no one else is even coming close too, which is such a great change in a scene where so many genres become trendy or fashionable.
Take their set at Kennedys Creek for instance-opening with a melodic even shoegazey style ambient number with Charlie Perry’s poetry being the focal point of the track, it was truly something impressively unique. That’s why I’m super excited to be covering them for the release of their debut EP.
Speaking of the release, I caught the groups vocalist (the aforementioned Charlie Perry) to find out more about what the lads have been working on.
“This time around we want to have elements of that but take a lot more time in crafting the sound. We have a lot more patience now, we kind of realised there isn’t much point rushing it.”
“We spent four to five days laying down all the tracks with everyone playing together. The whole point of that was because we had all these songs that we had been playing for ages so we wanted to do an experiment recording it to tape and bringing back that raw and gritty sound.”
Expanding their sound into the realms of psych (with their earlier material being slightly more funk orientated) Charlie spoke of how Sofala has developed his style of lyricism.
“I have always written poetry,” he remarks,
“I wasn’t really playing music or anything until we where a band i was just writing words and stories and Will who is no longer in the band, got me to sing some of my poems and that’s how we started.”
Expanding on this he humbly explains, “I’m very lucky to be able to be playing alongside and learning off such incredible musicians, it really helped me hone that craft into music, it was something I hadn’t even considered trying.”
To celebrate the release of Sofalas self-titled EP they will be hitting the road with their “sister band” Tomgirl, the tour will be wrapped up with volume two of the bands mini-festival ‘Sofalarama.’
“The last show of that tour will be round 2 of Sofalarama at the Tote where there will be 10 bands playing that day and night which will be fun.”
“I’m super pumped about that, all the bands that are playing are sick.”
With a stacked lineup featuring Sofala, Tomgirl, Easy Browns, Messy Mammals and more it will definitely be an event worthy of checking out. Especially considering Sofala have two more EP’s in the works, who knows when the next chance to see them will be. So be sure to catch me there for a beer.
When & Where: The Tote, Collingwood – March 2.
Written by Alex Callan
