Kwamie Liv has released her first new music in six years, returning with the guitar streaked single No One Owns the Sunrise.
The Copenhagen born, Danish Zambian singer, songwriter and producer has swapped her late night, down tempo noir for a more acoustic, panoramic sound. The track puts her smoky vocals front and centre over an atmospheric mix of underground alternative and sprawling pop.
Her comeback was first signalled in a social media post that ended what looked like two and a half years of silence. It showed Liv standing in front of a large painting in progress, alongside a short clip of a vinyl record spinning, a likely glimpse of a forthcoming project.
The following night she opened the official Copenhagen Fashion Week gala, her first live performance in over three years.
No One Owns the Sunrise is out now independently on her own label, Fame Bear, with distribution through AWAL. A visual accompaniment is also available.
“I wanted to create a musical landscape that sounded like spinning around weightlessly,” Liv says. “The song is about the sunrise that lives inside all of us. It’s that free and independent force that cannot be controlled, that we need to protect and nurture, and that blossoms when we celebrate and lift each other up.”
The single builds on a decade of work that made her one of Copenhagen’s most distinctive voices. Her debut EP, Lost in the Girl, earned a Danish Music Awards nomination, and her 2018 debut album, Lovers That Come and Go, locked in that reputation.
Liv has also picked up two Robert Award nominations for her film score work, most notably for a collaboration with the late Angelo Badalamenti, a favourite of David Lynch. She has sold out concert halls and featured on an underground project by Nick McCarthy, founding member of Franz Ferdinand.
Away from music, she has built a parallel practice as a visual artist, drawing satirical, feminist cartoons of women smoking, drinking and living on their own terms, work that led to a solo gallery exhibition.
With No One Owns the Sunrise, Liv puts musical autonomy and raw instrumentation at the heart of her next chapter, a track built to feel intimate and communal at once.
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