Sophia Nance didn’t set out to fit into anything. As the solo project ULTRAvioletcoraline, the Laredo-raised, Austin-based musician builds songs with no scene in mind and no rule book to follow.
“There was no genre, no direction, or anything like that,” she says. “I just really wanted to do whatever I wanted to do.”
That freedom is baked into every part of the project – including what happens when the songs leave her bedroom and hit a stage. This month’s People To Wave To docu-concert captures ULTRAvioletcoraline in both forms, and the gap between them is the whole point.
“If you listen to the actual music and then compare it to the live stuff, I think they’re pretty different,” Nance says. On record, the songs are hers alone, built track by track exactly how she hears them. Live, they loosen up completely – stretching into something warmer, more soulful, more in the pocket, like a band finding a groove together in real time rather than replaying a fixed arrangement. Bassist Dakota Britton (also Nance’s boyfriend), drummer James Navarro, guitarist Marc-Rene Baharanyi, and Felix Kimbrell, who also plays alongside her in her band lluvii, take the artist’s songs into the practice room and rework them until they barely resemble the studio versions.
“It’s a complete reimagining of what I make,” she says, “but I really like that.”
Nance has been building toward this her whole life – she’s played piano since age 7 and written songs since fourth grade (her very first song was called “Polka Dots”). But the emotional center of this episode is her late grandmother, whose voice she wove into one of her tracks. Her grandmother was a hard worker who pushed her to be strong, she shares, and loved hearing her play violin. At her funeral, something clicked.
“It’s time to hustle for music,” Nance remembers thinking, “because I know she would hustle.”
Ask her what she wants people to feel after a show, and the answer is simple. “I hope they feel refreshed,” she says. “I think I make music, really, for femmes – younger femmes especially. I hope I inspire in that sense.”
Tight bedroom-pop songs turned loose and jammy by a full band, a hometown she’s learning to embrace, and a grandmother’s voice still guiding the songwriting – this is one of the more personal People To Wave To episodes. Watch the full docu-concert now on YouTube.
The Austin Chronicle Presents: People To Wave To is a docu-concert series created by Kyra Bruce and produced by Audra Webbe. Find more on YouTube.
