SOPHIE, the DJ, songwriter, and music producer who helped to shape the current state of electronic music, released her final album posthumously on September 25, 2024.
Sophie died tragically at the age of 31 following an accident where she fell off a balcony roof in Athens, Greece, trying to get a closer look at the full moon. Her sudden death shocked many in the music industry across genres, but especially in the electronic and experimental music scenes. In such a short time, Sophie had greatly impacted the scene.
Early Career
Sophie knew she wanted to be a DJ at a young age, wanting to drop out of school when she was 10 years old to be an electronic music producer, but her parents didn’t allow her.
In an interview with Thora Siemsen, Sophie described her early relationship with electronic music. “As soon as I heard electronic music, I spent all my time listening to those cassette tapes. I would steal them from the car. It was definitely a way out at that point.”
She also said, “I would be on my own a lot of the time, doing music. It was an escapism thing…I had good friends, but music, I suppose, became my escape, like this friend I was looking for that was about the same stuff as me.”
Her first DJ gig was for her half-sister’s wedding, and she began DJing along with working on music production around the same time.
Sophie’s career began in a band named Motherland with Sabine Gottfried, Matthew Lutz-Kinoy, and Marcella Dvsi. They played live in Berlin and the UK in 2008 and 2009.
Sophie’s debut solo single release was “Nothing More to Say” in February 2013.
Sophie’s Discography
Sophie continued to release singles throughout 2014 and 2015. The single “Bipp” received critical acclaim and Pitchfork ranked it as the 17th best release of 2013, and 57th on their list of best tracks between 2010 and 2014.
The “Lemonade/Hard” single was released in August 2014, and “Lemonade” was featured in a commercial for McDonalds. The single was included on the top ten single release lists from The Washington Post, Resident Advisor, Complex, and Pitchfork.
In March 2015, Charli XCX announced the pair were working together on tracks. It was later revealed the two had worked together on many of the tracks on what would be Charli’s upcoming album release, Pop 2. The Vroom Vroom EP was released in February 2016 and was primarily produced by Sophie.
In October 2017, Sophie released “It’s Okay To Cry.” This was the lead single for her album Oil of Every Pearls Un-Insides, which was released on June 15, 2018. In July 2019, Sophie released a remix album called Oil of Every Peals Un-Insides Non-Stop Remix Album.
“It’s Okay To Cry” was the first solo release of Sophie’s to use her image and voice. Before this, she hid her identity and used filtering such as voice masking and obscuring images. Some journalists believed Sophie was a cisgender man who was using femininity as a marketing tactic, which was looked down upon given the lack of women in electronic music and production. This music video has been understood to be a kind of ‘coming out’ for Sophie as a transgender woman.
This album made history as it was nominated for Best Dance/Electronic Album at the 61st Grammy Awards. This nomination made Sophie the first openly transgender artist to be nominated for the category.
Artistry
There have been various words and phrases used to describe Sophie’s artistic style. It’s hard to define the specific genre since Sophie was actively creating it. The best descriptions of her work are avant-garde and hyperpop. Her music has also been described as surrealist.
Sophie primarily used the Electron Monomachine Synth and Ableton Live Work Station to create her music, along with various other machines and technology.
In an interview with Arte Tracks, Sophie said, “You have the possibility with electronic music to generate any texture, in theory, and any sound. So why would any musician want to limit themselves? You want to work with the most powerful tools you can work with. And in the past, that may have been a piano or guitar but now I think the power of software synthesizers is something that all musicians I would think would want to harness.”
Much of the work Sophie created in her career was taking sounds from underground electronic music scenes and experimentally introducing them to the pop genre. Much of her work was successful through collaboration work.
Sophie’s career included collaborations with music group PC Music, founded by AG Cook in 2013. While Sophie was not explicitly part of PC Music, she worked with both AG Cook and various artists associated with the label. She was a part of a project called QT that emerged from PC Music.
In a discussion with Interview Magazine, she explained, “I make my music to express everything I feel is necessary to communicate at a given time. Through music, I can express myself with statements that are more nuanced and more than factual details.”
She also said:
I get so much energy and I learn so much through collaborating with other people. Ultimately, I think the best music will always be created through collaborations — pooling together skills to create something bigger than any individual. I like to use my own SOPHIE material to present ideas in their most extreme, uncompromised form. I really use those opportunities to express exactly where I am in terms of production and writing ideas, as a document of my thoughts and feelings, as well. When you’re working with other artists, it’s often a mix of your ideas with somebody else’s, which can be extremely fruitful. But then it’s also interesting to present the completely undiluted version of what I imagine music could be. I care about both my own music and collaborating equally, and I pretty much split my time equally, as well.
Interview Magazine: Pop wunderkind SOPHIE synthesizes
human and machine voices
SOPHIE
Before Sophie’s death, she was working on a second full-length album. The album was close to being completed. Her brother and studio manager, Benny Long, took on the daunting challenge of finishing the album. It was also decided that SOPHIE would be the last Sophie album.
The entire tracklist on SOPHIE is made up of collaborations.
When Long took up the project, many of the tracks were also near completion. They had all the layers and some vocal recordings, and the overall structure was nearly complete. It just needed some adjustment.
In an interview with The New York Times, Long stated, “Sophie would never want to finish anything. She’d always want to move on to the next thing. She was just wanting to create, create, create, which now I’m super thankful for.”
The album sounds like SOPHIE. However, at the same time, it sounds a little empty. Who knows what the album would really sound like if Sophie was still alive today and had the ability to finish this album the way she intended. However, this project is the most reflective of the work Sophie has completed and serves as a beautiful tribute to her life and career.
Sophie’s Impact
Sophie was without a doubt, a revolutionary artist whose absence will be felt for years. Much of her career and the sounds she was creating were unlike a lot of her contemporaries and collaborators. Electronic music will catch up with the work Sophie has produced for many years to come. Who can say what Sophie would have created if she were still alive today? It probably would have been groundbreaking.
After her death, many artists have written tribute songs to Sophie. On BRAT, Charli XCX wrote “So I” in dedication to Sophie (and is written directly as a response to “It’s Okay to Cry”). The “So I” remix with AG Cook samples some of Sophie’s previous work, as well as reflecting on personal stories with the artist. Caroline Polacheck wrote “I Believe,” St. Vincent wrote “Sweetest Fruit” and AG Cook wrote “Without” in her honor.