Looking back at an artist who turned art into power.
As I revisit last Summer’s HEAV3N SUSPENDED livestream (see below), I am still taken aback by the poignancy of SOPHIE’s set — that doesn’t diminish with subsequent listens. “Everybody’s got to own their body” chants pile on, reminding us of the power and agency within each and every single one of us. The music radiates love and solidarity, especially for 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 — 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 seen the pop mainstream and 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 that is a reality for many, especially within the queer community. For most, living in this liminal space meant alternating between sunny pop and grittier, darker sounds, living in dichotomy whereas SOPHIE was clear on wanting the two to merge into one, to infiltrate one another, by de-constructing the binary so much of our experience of the world has conditioned many of us 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 the long list of star-studded collaborations (including some that still haven’t seen the light of day)? SOPHIE acknowledged the opportunity for more visibility and allowing the producer to continue working the magic on an even broader scale. A lot of art comes down to communication and SOPHIE marveled at the challenge of reaching the largest group of people possible without compromising 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. What seemed like polar opposites to some bent to this artist’s will to join in a circle; the irreverence of the underground met poptimism on equal footing and didn’t let one dictate the direction the art was taking any more than the other.
SOPHIE was a voice for the idea that apparent manichaeism is generally nothing more than an illusion. Aware of the representation she provided to a queer community that’s still coming to terms with dismantling patriarchal heritage and simplistic world views passed down from generations 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 and it was only when others tried to force narratives because they looked elsewhere than in the music for answers to questions that didn’t necessarily warrant answers that SOPHIE had to pause and reclaim the story that was SOPHIE’s to tell. Up until 2017, the producer had communicated nearly exclusively through the music. Rumors and uninspired press started spreading misjudgments on SOPHIE’s intent and an (absurd) alleged appropriation and objectification of stereotypically feminine identities 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 (see below). 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. In essence, 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). The art had always been a confluence of sonics and how the body reacted to it through how one consumed it, now SOPHIE demonstrated it firsthand.
Just like SOPHIE’s music is permeated with distortions of form, material and shape, SOPHIE moved where contortion allowed, twisting and turning into the being the moment spawned, never second-guessing if it was too much or not enough. SOPHIE thrived in discomfort; a blessing for any queer person living in the world. When it came down to it, SOPHIE left an indelible mark on a community that’s still working to build a safer haven that is more than the sum of its parts. I would like to end this retrospective with words that any queer creative deserves to hear from one 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)
SOPHIE, 1986–2021
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Listen to SOPHIE here (Spotify)
Twitter: @red_dziri
