In a pop world where artists confess their innermost secrets to the media at the drop of a hat, Sophie Zelmani prefers to let the magic of the music stand on its own without explanation. She is soft-spoken and charmingly reticent in person, preferring to communicate through her songwriting with extraordinary eloquence. "I write songs when I feel I have to," she insists. "I can't plan them. I don't think of songwriting in technical terms... they just come as they come. When I do write, I like to get out all the emotions I want to express as fast as possible. I dont like to overthink a song because to me it's about getting out the feelings. I like those songs you can instantly tell come straight from the heart; where the lyrics and the melody seem fated to be together."

Sophie began writing plaintive songs and learning how to play guitar at the age of 14. "Almost every girl in school wrote some poetry about love, life or whatever,"she recalls. "But it wasn't until I started writing songs that I found something that was truly me."

Her stepfather taught her some chords and suddenly the shy girl who had spent most of her early youth playing soccer and running track with the boys discovered that she had a special knack for songwriting. "I wrote a song and it felt amazing. I didn't really think that much about what I was doing, really," says Sophie with typical modesty. Recording a few songs at a local studio, she mailed them off to three record companies -- as far as she knew at that time, the sum total of the record business -- with no special expectations. Sophie was thoroughly, pleasantly shocked when she received a call back from Sony Sweden and was offered a recording deal.

That almost otherworldly unselfconsciousness is at the heart of Sophie Zelmani's music, which is both intimate and revealing. The first single, "Always You," is typical, a simple melody backed with a mournful Neil Young-ish harp and a shimmering acoustic guitar line which caresses the sensual lyrics of longing: "If red roses weren't so lovely/If wine didn't taste so good/If stars weren't so romantic..." Other influences are apparent in the Van Morrison-like sax riff which underlines "A Thousand Times," the Dylanesque narrative of "You and Him," the Springsteenish wistfulness of "I'll See You (In Another World)," which echoes her stated beliefs in "destiny, wisdom of life, goodness, dreams, close relationships and ... love."

The Sophie Zelmani album was produced by Lars Halapi, a renowned Swedish musician who also played guitar and pedal steel on the recording sessions, while the evocative sax parts were performed by Per "Texas" Johansson. In all cases, the musical accompaniment matches the stark simplicity of the lyrics which deal with everyday concerns that are universal in scope. She may be from Sweden, but Sophie Zelmani's music can travel the world.

"It's strange for me to talk about the songs because I wrote them for myself," she says apologetically. "But I can tell you I write about life, emotions, relations and small things."

Zelmani is already an acclaimed star in her native country. This, her album debut entered the Swedish charts at #4. Sophie won a Swedish Grammy award as "Best Newcomer" soon afterwards and was nominated "Best Female Pop Singer." Critics at home have called compared her music to the more delicate, lush side vintage Van Morrison, Neil Young and Bob Dylan. She's also quickly gained startling popularity throughout Western European countries and the Far East. The album is fast approaching gold in Sweden and Japan respectively.

Those small things add up to make Sophie Zelmani a very big thing.