Soham De

'It’s always been – and still is – a process of trying to find what I want from music…’

24-year-old singer-songwriter Soham De is hard to pin down.

On the one hand, he’s one of the UK’s most distinctive singer-songwriters. A man whose sprawling compositions and immediate, gravel-tinged vocals – think Dermot Kennedy and Hozier crossed with a hint of Hayley Williams – betray a penchant for bombast and an ambition that stretches far beyond his tender years.

On the other, he’s an introvert who feels most at home on the road. A New Delhi-born, King’s Lynn-raised creative who feels equally as comfortable performing to thousands on a sprawling festival stage as he does to a hundred people in a packed-out backstreet bar. A prodigiously talented singer-songwriter, and man of the road, whose sole goal is to share his intricate, anthemic songs with as many people as possible.

After landing a spot on the longlist of Glastonbury Festival’s Emerging Talent Competition in 2017, Soham was faced with a choice: to continue with his studies at Durham University, or to pursue music as a full-time endeavour? For most of us, it would be an impossible dilemma: but not for Soham De. So, he left the world of academia behind and set about writing new music.
His debut single proper, ‘Brave’, was released in 2018, and he soon garnered support from BBC Introducing, Sofar Sounds, the Never Fade Sessions, SBTV, Amazing Radio, Oxjam, and BBC 1 Look East. Slots at WOMAD, Pinkpop, The Great Escape, Boardmasters, Live at Leeds, Hit The North, and Dot to Dot festivals followed, as well as a European tour with The Pierce Brothers and select headline shows across the UK and Europe.

Soham’s next releases – including his debut EP, The Next Nowhere, standalone singles ‘Bury Me’ and ‘Deer’, and his sophomore Blue EP – arrived in quick succession, before 2020’s Covid-19 pandemic forced Soham to retreat back to the studio.

After spending the subsequent two years teaching himself to produce and engineer his own recordings, Soham De returned in March 2022 with the announcement of his brand-new single, Someone Else (arriving via AWAL). By now a formidable touring veteran with over 300 shows – and support slots for the likes of James Blunt, Gabrielle Aplin, Ryan Bingham, Saint Raymond, and Meadowlark – to his name, this new EP captures Soham at his most brutally vulnerable without losing any of the raw, visceral magic of his previous creative efforts.

So, that’s Soham De. The man of the road who craves his own company. The bombastic performer with the introspective mind of an artist. And a meticulous songwriter who spent his lockdown simultaneously mulling over what it means to be a touring musician amid a global meltdown and a self-sufficient creative in a world that prioritises immediacy over emotional connection.

We might not know where he’s going next – but we can be sure that we won’t want to miss it.