Kira Skov is one of Denmark’s most acclaimed and enduring voices, with 16 solo albums to her name and a career spanning over two decades. Known for her soulful, genre-defying sound and emotionally charged delivery, she has worked with artists like Tricky, John Parish, and Trentemøller, and has often been compared to PJ Harvey, Marianne Faithfull, and Beth Gibbons.
On her haunting and melodically rich new album What Ties Us Together – Will Keep Us Apart, Kira Skov explores the emotional inheritance passed down through families—told stories, buried traumas, and the silence between generations. Written as the musical backbone for a new Danish TV drama ‘Generationer’ (Generations), the album stands firmly on its own as a poetic, emotionally resonant body of work.
The material for this new album got it’s start long ago, when Kira Skov was growing up in the Copenhagen suburb of Rødovre and her family was full of wild stories.
Like the one about her father’s friend Dennis, who suffered terrible things before ending his life in a bathtub. Or the unknown sister who suddenly appeared in a story, only to vanish again—this time for good, through an overdose. And then there was her father’s own battle with cancer, supposedly treated in a hospital in Lund, Sweden.
But none of these people ever existed. They lived—and died—only in her father’s imagination.
“As kids, my siblings and I didn’t know these stories were made up. They ended up becoming part of our shared history. And in a strange way, some of my father’s tales became a kind of premonition for things that would happen later in my life,” says Kira Skov.
For years, the things that are said—and just as often left unsaid — within families have occupied the Danish singer-songwriter’s thoughts. Eventually, the stories and the unspoken inheritance passed down through generations demanded space in her songwriting.
“I had already written a few songs about family relationships and was beginning to go deeper into the theme when the phone rang with a remarkable proposition,” she says. The call came from a Danish screenwriter and director working on a new drama series about generational family secrets. She invited Kira to write the soundtrack, and their shared themes—inheritance, memory, silence, and truth—sparked a creative flow that became more than just music for the screen.
“It was such a wild coincidence that we were both working with the same themes, about how we see each other across generations. The collaboration felt meant to be. It released something in me, and I kept writing until it became a full album,” explains Kira Skov.
Her new album, WHAT TIES US TOGETHER – WILL KEEP US APART, explores the narratives that echo through generations, as well as the unspoken legacies we carry—shame, silence, trauma, and dreams. Her grandfather was a survivor of a Nazi concentration camp and returned home deeply traumatized. Kira’s father struggled with addiction throughout his life, and perhaps, as Kira reflects, that darkness explains her early attraction to “people with shadows and darkness in their minds.”
The result is a musically direct and emotionally clear album, written in a melodic language that speaks plainly to the listener. “It’s been a wonderful process to write and record this album, and I’m very, very happy with the result,” says Kira Skov.
The album was recorded and produced by Kira Skov and her partner, Silas Tinglef, at Seabass Studios in Copenhagen. Silas Tinglef plays nearly all the instruments: guitar, drums, keyboards, and bass on selected tracks. Kira sings and plays guitar. Maria Jagd plays all strings, AC plays bass on a couple of songs, Ned Ferm appears on flute and saxophone, and Anders Trentemøller contributes synth bass on one track. The album is mastered by Brian Batz.
Track-by-track – in Kira Skov’s own words:
“Look Inside”
A reflection on what love is not—and then a wondering about what it might be and where it comes from. A glimpse of love in both small and large moments of life, and a gratitude for what we have when we stop and notice it.
“Only The Dream”
A stream of thought and a kind of wonder: is what we believed to be real actually real? A celebration of the mystery of life and the world. A freeing tribute to all that we don’t know—and never will. A song in honour of free dreams.
“Ordinary People”
A symphonic journey beginning with a sense of alienation and loneliness. The feeling of being on the outside looking in. As the song progresses, this feeling transforms into a sort of manifesto about choosing your own path, and a new kind of optimism emerges in the music.
“Waterfalls”
About the painful dilemma of whether to speak or stay silent about the hardest truths in a family. What’s worse—saying it out loud or leaving it unsaid? And how we repeat the same patterns endlessly, precisely by refusing to look at them.
“Shame”
About the feeling of not being seen or recognised. Misunderstandings in even the closest relationships can be devastating. And the shame we grow up with—without always knowing why. A cultural burden, or perhaps something inherited, a kind of internal defect that holds us back in our relationships with others.
“Understanding”
About everything we long to say but can’t express. The desire to be understood and to find a language for what remains unspoken is once again a theme. Even as the song circles around this yearning, there is a sense of connection—because what we cannot figure out still binds us, somehow, as humans.
“Scream It Out”
A kind of chant on the album’s central theme. A call to get it out! The repressed scream.
“Passed Down”
About inheritance and generations. What we pass on—faith, beliefs, traumas, habits. And a longing to transcend it all and walk into another kind of future, full of dreams and hope.
“Calling the Grievers”
About a chance encounter with someone who knows nothing about your life but still recognises you and names something unspoken. A call to all those who grieve to speak of what’s been lost.
“Daddy and the Gone”
About longing for the absent father. And about creating your own narrative and imagining your own world, when the one you’re given doesn’t quite contain or hold you.
“Next Time”
A bittersweet, humorous song about trying to do it better—next time? Maybe somewhere else, at another time, in a different life, it might be possible.
“It Ain’t Pretty”
A thematic and sonic detour. A song about ageing as a woman in a youth-obsessed culture. It holds both rage and bewilderment at the changes inside and in how others perceive you as your exterior ages. It’s a gospel/punk hybrid that rebels against ageism—from my own, female perspective.
Kira Skov
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