Magnus Holmen

Among other things Magnus draws his influences from a diverse musical background containing several years of classical guitar-studies, playing in different rock-bands during his teens, studying sitar and tablas at a classical music center in India, playing as a multi-instrumentalist for Swedish folk artists, conducting and composing for a 50-piece-choir, to name a few.

Moving to Hollywood, California to pursue a musical career in the US he attended Guitar Institute of Technology and Vocal Institute of Technology at the well known Musicians Institute, and has since performed acoustic shows under his own name at venues in the Los Angeles area and around Scandinavia.

With his heart close to both folk and rock, and influenced by artists like Bruce Springsteen, Ryan Adams, Patty Griffin amongst others, it comes very natural to compare him to them, but the keen listener can also hear traces of Swedish musical heritage in his song-writing.

His debut album "Burn" is an acoustic-based singer/songwriter-album that travels through a beautifully melancholic landscape where the music shifts between naked stillness and glowing intensity, often overlapping and without separating them.
Warm but still powerful voice is complemented by dynamic and flowing guitar, communicating personal stories as well as glimpses from the different dimensions of Life with rare intensity and vulnerability.

In Magnus' own words, translated from a Swedish interview:

"My intention as a songwriter and artist is to be part of a storytelling tradition that I feel today is as needed as ever. By telling stories both about life as we see it, and also what seems to lie beyond our usual perception of reality, I want to challenge the listener, and myself, to relate to the world and everything in it in deeper, more real and maybe even new ways. Sharing my own stories in a naked and honest way is one way of doing this.

Sometimes all I can write about is simple human experience. The vastness of the bigger picture seems frustratingly elusive and doesn't lend itself well to being described with our meager vocabulary. This is why Truth can not be clearly stated, only implied in a poetical, artful way.
With some of my songs I have no higher ambition than to share stories about life as we usually see and feel it, and hope that it strikes a chord in the listener. Sometimes it's my story, sometimes not. With other songs though, I hope that my little stories of human experience in some subtle way point to that which I cannot fully express.

True art is always inherently given back to the source, leaving the artist humbled by his inspiration and the act of creating."