SOPHIE - music contortionist always and forever
Looking back at an artist who turned art into power.
SOPHIE, It’s Okay To Cry artwork, Transgressive Records
Revisiting last Summer’s HEAV3N SUSPENDED livestream, I am still taken aback by the poignancy of SOPHIE’s set. “Everybody’s got to own their body” chants pile on –– a grounding reminder of the power and agency within each and every single one of us. The music radiates love and solidarity. It's a love letter to our Black trans and queer femme family that is still subject to so much unfathomable violence. Among the fallen, we remember and mourn the lives of: Monika Diamond, Lexi, Nina Pop, Dominique Fells, Riah Milton, Brian Powers, Brayla Stone, Merci Mack, Shaki Peters, Bree Black, Dior H Ova, Queasha D Hardy, Aja Raquelle Rhone-Spears, Lea Rayshon Daye, Kee Sam, Aerrion Burnett, Mia Green, Brooklyn Deshuna, Angel Unique, Skylar Heath, Asia Jynae Foster, Chae’ Meshia Simms, Courtney Key and many more, with hundreds still unreported. Please consider donating to the Marsha P. Johnson Institute or other organisations if you can to help protect Black trans lives that are disproportionately affected by the ongoing health crisis.
SOPHIE, artist and producer extraordinaire, was only beginning to get a name out in the mainstream: already a household name for half a decade –– very much confirmed by the reception of OIL OF EVERY PEARL’S UN-INSIDES in 2018 ––, the producer was reaching for the stars. And the ambition lined up with the talent. SOPHIE (who preferred not being referred to as anything other than SOPHIE) didn’t see the pop mainstream and queer underground culture as antitheses of one another. The artist was working with both at the same time, living in a world where glossy pop and dark techno exist in the same space –– a world inhabited by many of our queer siblings. For most, living in this liminal space means alternating between sunny pop and grittier, darker sounds: in essence, living in dichotomy. Whereas SOPHIE was clear on wanting the two to merge into one by de-constructing the binary we're conditioned to believe natural.
SOPHIE’s Grammy nomination for Dance/Electronic Album of the Year in 2019 meant the industry was taking notice. How could they not after the ripple effect of the artist’s own work permeating throughout the pop spectrum, not to mention a long list of star-studded collaborations? SOPHIE acknowledged this opportunity for more visibility which allowed the producer to continue working the magic on an even broader scale. SOPHIE marveled at the challenge of reaching the largest group of people possible without compromising any core values. It never felt like the music was meant to appeal to an exclusive niche. Quite the contrary: SOPHIE affirmed never wanting to segregate a prospective audience. Fallacious polar opposites bent to this artist’s will to join in a circle; the inherent irreverence of the underground met poptimism on equal footing. Neither dictated the direction the art was taking any more than the other.
SOPHIE was a voice for the idea that presumed binaries are little more than the synthesis of a multitude of layers. Acutely aware of the representation provided to a queer community that’s still coming to terms with dismantling patriarchal heritage and the accompanying destructive world views passed down as to not disturb the status quo, SOPHIE saw a void in the cultural space that needed filling and invited others to join in in this effort. When asked about views on whether society was catching up to those ideals, SOPHIE said: “There is a huge amount of work to be done socially and culturally. The gap between where we are now and I imagine where we could be, the places where our imagination could take us are so far away from what we are presented with a lot of the time. So I can’t get too excited about anything happening now, more excited about what should be happening in the future and hopefully what will happen.“ (ARTE tracks interview).
The music SOPHIE made came at the intersection of technology and reacting to the world. Sounds were synthesized and designed to replicate organic phenomena - notice the prominence of liquid drops and aquatic motion in the just now-released UNISIL track made some years ago. There is a marked will to distort and cartoonize surround sounds, to take habitual motifs into extreme spheres, imagining what theoretically feasible but practically impossible objects would sound like (imagine a piano as long as a mountain, what would the string sound like? and yes, SOPHIE has pictured it and worked it out in waveform).
It feels like the art came down to an incredible instinct and remarkable appetence for comfort in discomfort; music was the chosen form of communication by and large. It was only when misguided individuals looked elsewhere for answers to ill-posed questions that SOPHIE had to pause and reclaim the story that was SOPHIE’s to tell. The narrative wasn't up for grabs. Up until 2017, the producer had communicated nearly exclusively through the music. Rumors and uninspired press started spreading lukewarm (misinformed) takes on SOPHIE’s intent that peaked with an equally absurd alleged appropriation and objectification of stereotypically feminine identities along with the PC Music crew. Few points as misguided as this one have been made out in the open about an artist of SOPHIE’s calibre. That same year SOPHIE decided to appear on the music video for 'It’s Okay To Cry'. The artist has repeatedly claimed doing so only because it felt right at that time (see here and here), adding there was never an intent to build mythology around her anonymity. At that moment, SOPHIE upped the ante by choosing more visibility and “opening up this new space for myself and others consequently to inhabit in music” (DJ Mag interview).
SOPHIE’s music is permeated with distortions of form, material and shape. Not unlike how SOPHIE moved through the world, twisting and turning into the being the moment spawned, never second-guessing if it was too much or not enough. SOPHIE thrived in discomfort. When it came down to it, SOPHIE left an indelible mark on a community that’s still working to build a safe space that is more than the sum of its parts. In the words of a trailblazer to the ones to come:
“It is so important for queer people, and for anyone making music that’s deemed to be somehow alternative or inaccessible. They shouldn’t be made to feel like their identities are not mainstream, or to be marginalized just through genre and categories. I think it’s really important to break. down those binaries, and not feel. that because you are making ‘weird’ music, that you are a ‘weird’ person. To create those bridges is possible, it’s one of the most important things for artists to do” (SOPHIE, July 2019, DJ Mag interview)
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