Track By Track: Sally Dige – Holding the Sun

We’ve long been fans of Berlin-based musician Sally Dige, and we’re proud to bring you this breakdown of her new Holding the Sun album as part of our Track By Track feature.

Holding the Sun marks something of a musical departure for Dige, as it finds her incorporating more organic elements and instruments into her sound. Often leaning into baroque pop with a folkish and, at times, gothic pop ambience, it has a unique sound that finds Dige releasing what I’d say is her greatest album to date.

The album undoubtedly retains the essence of Sally Dige: it features thoughtful lyrics that delve into the complexities of life and relationships, arrangements that exude a timeless quality, and, of course, the unmistakably emotionally resonant vocals of Dige herself.

It’s You I’m Thinking Of

It’s You I’m Thinking Of marked the beginning of a new musical direction for me from my electronic synth-pop sound. I had borrowed a mandolin from a friend and wanted to create a song that featured it. My idea was to write each song on the album built around different instruments, with each track focusing on one-to-two main “star” instruments.

For this song, the star instruments are the mandolin and electric guitar. It’s a very personal track, written for someone very special to me.

Voice of My Heart

With Voice of My Heart, I wanted to take a more minimalistic and nostalgic direction; to paint a picture of inner pain and struggle, while still holding on to that small voice of hope inside that keeps you going.

I had just written my instrumental piano track, Our Secret and wanted another piano song but with vocals. The original version of this song had a brass section and a brass bridge section with live drums.

At the last minute I decided to cut the brass and drums, and instead bring in the zitter, harp, chimes and have programmed drums. This version ended up sounding quite different to the original version, but I just couldn’t get the original song to work, so I had to make some drastic cuts and changes.

Sow the Path

Sow the Path continues the theme of inner power. It ended up becoming more of a post-punk track than I originally intended. There are two versions of the song on the album: this one, and Sow the Path (Strings Version). The Strings Version reflects how the song originally sounded. I wanted both versions to be on the album as I felt that they both are part of the narrative of the album.

Strength in Me

I wanted to do a song in ¾ time signature and with a different tuning than the usual tuning of 440Hz. Originally, I wanted to have the tuning be the “the healing” tuning of 432Hz, but stupidly, I didn’t know how to properly change the tuning in Logic Pro X, so the closest I could get to that tuning in Logic Pro was 432.2Hz (laughs).

Because of the different tuning, I would stupidly forget to tune my instruments to the 432.2Hz and would finish and edit my recordings (that sometimes took all day) only to have to re-do them all over again once I realised that I didn’t tune the instruments correctly – this happened too many times!

It was also fun to co-produce this track with Clinton Bolivar (aka Compositions Deluxe). We’ve known each other from the underground Vancouver music scene for quite some years.

He played in bands like Dead Ghosts and Mode Moderne and I said to him, “You know what, why don’t we try something together?!” It can often get boring and uninspiring to always work alone!

We met up together at my dad’s place in Vancouver, then I took the project with me to Berlin and Clay would send me stems or give some arrangement ideas that I would put together and work on, in the project. It feels good to have someone else in your corner with you. I would like to do more collaborations in the future.

I Will Be the Sun for You

I Will Be the Sun for You was the second single I released after It’s You I’m Thinking Of. During this time, I was really into the mandolin and was obsessed with searching for other local, cheap, second-hand string instruments I could buy and use in my songs.

I wanted to find cool looking instruments that I had never played before. This song features mandolin and balalaika. For a long time, the project name for this song was Be the One but in the end the name changed to be I Will Be the Sun for You.

You

I was initially unsure about releasing this song as it is more a folky/country track and I didn’t know if it would sound too different to my usual sound, but in the end, I decided that life is too short, and what the hell – just release it. I don’t have enough time and energy to make more side projects for different songs that I would like to release.

I’m so grateful for all the positive feedback I’ve received and how well the song has been received. I suppose you could say there are folk-inspired elements in the other songs on the album too, especially through the use of different string instruments and warmer sounds.

Sow the Path (Strings Version)

The original concept for Sow the Path was to create a fragile and emotive track with a piano base, building strings, harp plucks, and layered vocals. I wanted to have a song on this album that was more heavily centered on strings (violin and cello).

This was one of the songs that was hard to sing since I recorded it at home while having covid. I probably should have been resting in bed, but I was running out of time to finish the album, so I shouted at my sickness, “You Asshole!,” then went to set up my mic and said “covid-vocals it will have to be!”

Our Secret

Our Secret is another track in which I wanted to challenge myself. I think it marks the biggest departure from my original electronic synth-pop roots. I first thought it was a bad idea to release this song under my Sally Dige project, but by then I was already pushing all my own boundaries, and had just previously released a country-folk song, so if I was worried about maintaining a consistent brand, the damage had already been done several times over, so I figured, “why not this one too?”

It’s an instrumental piano piece that features piano, violin, and harp. I aimed to create a song without relying on heavy layering (which is a challenge for me). While working on it, I imagined it as a score for a scene in Lars von Trier’s film, Medea.

Holding the Sun is out now and available on vinyl and other physical formats on Bandcamp. The album can be streamed everywhere, including YouTube Music and Spotify. For album and artist news, follow Sally Dige on Instagram, TikTok, or Facebook. You can support Dige directly over on Patreon.

Header photo by Anni Porrasmäki