Sofie Livebrant

Svarta ballader ("Black Ballads") is the classically-trained Swedish folk musician Sofia Karlsson's second studio album, released in 2005. On the disc she exclusively interprets poems written by the Swedish proletarian school author Dan Andersson; five of the eleven poems are from his 1917 collection Svarta ballader. The poems are set to music by different composers, including the singers Gunnar Turesson, Gunde Johansson, and Thorstein Bergman; the musician Sven Scholander; a member of Karlsson's band, Sofie Livebrant, and Karlsson herself; while one song was set by Andersson. Karlsson and her band arranged all the songs, with novel instrumentation including cello, trumpet, bass clarinet, piano and percussion. The album became Karlsson's breakthrough; it was warmly welcomed by critics, who described her as a great Swedish folk singer, and the album as revealing the meaning of familiar songs, hidden by traditional interpretations. It was awarded several prizes, including a Grammis in 2006, a Manifestgalan prize in 2006, and the Dan Andersson prize in 2008. She followed up the launch by touring with the album's songs for two years. The album reached a peak placing of 6 in the Swedish charts in 2005, remaining in the top list for 54 weeks. Over 60,000 copies of the album have been sold in Sweden, an exceptional number for that country.