Nick Soden‘s music is thoughtful and tells the tale of being a human in the world today. You can see playing at a number of places around town from Ginko Coffee Shop to the Midway Saloon.
Please tell me about yourself and your music.
My name is Nick Soden and I am a local musician here in the Twin Cities. I write, produce and perform indie music. As a singer/songwriter, I aim to convey introspective, vulnerable themes to my audience through reflective and impactful lyricism. At the end of the day, I want the listener to continue thinking about the song and how it might relate to their life. My songs often a reflection of true life experiences that center around childhood, identity, and observations of a changing world. Although newer to the singer/songwriter scene, I have a vast array of performance experience within the realm of pageantry arts, including five years of touring with drum corps international playing marimba.
How was the experience of creating and releasing your EP, Uncanny Valley?
Uncanny Valley was a deeply personal project that was very therapeutic to create, and I felt like it was my way of articulating how I experience changes in the world, my life, and confronting my own mind. Each song on the EP tells the story of a real life experience I’ve had, and getting to put those out into the world and see others relate to them is very special; to be honest, it makes me feel more connected to other people because I know they experience similar feelings, whether it’s having to hide a part of you that society deems as different (Julia), dealing with panic attacks (Uncanny Valley) or reminiscing about a childhood friend and the uncertainty of their whereabouts (Sincerely, Your Old Friend). Being my debut EP, the production was a huge undertaking, and at times could be overwhelming, but I learned a lot throughout the process and particularly as I released it, how people responded, etc. I wrote most of these songs in my bedroom and produced all of them using Logic with my laptop and MIDI keyboard, and from there had some assistance with mixing and mastering—my friend of many years, Alec Wingfield, is an incredible audio engineer and I can’t thank him enough for his help and dedication to making this project come alive.
I like the idea in Ghost Town, where it feels (to me) like you’re talking about a time as much as a place, which highlights we have the power to leave such spaces. Can you tell me about the inspiration?
The inspiration for Ghost Town came from my experience taking public transportation. I would be on a full bus of people but every single person would have their head down looking at their phone, and despite being around all of them, it was an extremely isolating and jarring feeling to me. It made me think about my own relationship with technology and how even though I would love to not be dependent on it, it’s really hard to resist something that has become such a driving force in society. I tried to build the song by essentially telling these people to wake up and look around them at this dystopian world we’ve created, and as the song progresses I am admitting that I am lost in it too and it’s too late to go back. It’s like I’m oscillating between a fantasy (the world dictated by technology) and reality (me sitting on the bus watching others get lost to this technology). It’s a sad song, but I feel it’s very relevant.
Uncanny Valley is a fantastic name – for a song and album. How did you approach the song. Because if I had the talent, the title alone might get me started.
I approached the title track, Uncanny Valley, from a very vulnerable state, to be honest. I’ve dealt with intense anxiety and panic attacks since I was a teenager, and they often put me in a space where I feel detached from my own body, as if I’m looking back at myself and scared/not recognizing who I am. I think the technical term for it is “derealization” and it’s been something I’ve constantly battled with. The reason I named it Uncanny Valley is because these panic attacks give me that same sort of sensation as uncanny valley—where you’re looking at something that you know is human, but there’s something about that is slightly off, and in this case, that person is me. The rest of the EP is centered around this theme of operating and functioning in a world you know is human, but it’s not human enough, and the songs reflect that kind of duality I experience, like being a feminine guy in a masculine world, watching your own species act subhuman and attack other humans, going between and anxious and non anxious state, etc.
Where can people find you on stage or online?
You can find me all over the Twin Cities playing live at places like Finnish Bistro, The Midway Saloon and Ginko Coffeehouse. My name is Nick Soden on Spotify and all other streaming platforms, and my Instagram is @nicksoden96.
