SOPHIE - SOPHIE [CD]

Transgressive

£10.80

Format: CD
Catalogue No.: TRANS809CD
Barcode: 5400863167912
Release Date: 27 Sep 2024
Genre: Pop

SOPHIE, the self-titled second album from the visionary artist, producer and pop pioneer, will be released via Transgressive and Future Classic on 27 September 2024.

Produced by SOPHIE and Benny Long, SOPHIE is getting announced on Monday 24th of June with the first single ‘Reason Why (feat. Kim Petras & BC BC Kingdom’ premiering worldwide as Hottest Record on Jack Saunders’ Radio 1 show at 18:30 BST.

This album was created by SOPHIE and some of her most cherished collaborators. Close to completion when she tragically died, it has been lovingly finalised by those who hold her closest. As SOPHIE’s studio manager and most trusted sounding board for over a decade, Benny Long was heavily involved in the release of Oil Of Every Pearl's Un-insides, with mastering, production and mixing credits to his name. The two then worked together over several years developing the concept and production of this follow-up album, which Benny has lovingly completed, honouring SOPHIE’s vision.

“When we, Sophie’s family, took our first steps towards bringing this project to fruition we contacted the dear friends with whom she envisioned the album. We wrote, “We have been finding comfort in the music Sophie left us, it is a gift that we truly cherish as we try to find a way forward, with Sophie forever at the centre of our worlds.”

Sophie didn’t often speak publicly of her private life, preferring to put everything she wanted to articulate in her music. It feels only right to share with the world the music she hoped to release, in the belief that we can all connect with her in this, the form she loved most. 

This album has always told the story of Sophie’s musical journey, a cacophony of skill and creative vision eclipsing time and genre. Her unique sound world moves at an emotional level, encouraging the listener to intuitively embrace the ever-evolving landscape of light and dark, soft and hard, to the end of self-love and joyful self-acceptance. Emphasising contradictions of sound and material, Sophie’s work supersedes the pure aural to create the dimension she dreamed of.

Now, it holds another poignant meaning, it tells a life story, from mysterious unknown, through wild clublands, to euphoric immateriality.

Sophie gave all of herself to her music. It’s here that she can always be found.”

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Oil of Every Pearl's Un-Insides album reviews

The experimental music of SOPHIE relaxes into new forms on her debut album. It is sprawling and beautiful, while still keeping the disorienting, latex-pop feel of her fascinating production technique. - Pitchfork, 8.6/10

Sophie has crafted a genuinely original sound and uses it to visit extremes of terror, sadness and pleasure. - The Guardian, 4/5

Crossing boundaries of pop music and chasing transcendence, SOPHIE achieves the rare feat of making abstract, difficult electronic music that hits you straight in the heart. - NME, 4/5

The UK producer's debut album hurls the listener through an uncanny valley of sonic possibilities - The Rolling Stone, 4/5

This is the kind of music that, in 20 years, we may look back on as a pivotal point in changing the trajectory of the pop music sound. - Exclaim, 9/10

A powerful statement of identity, a shattering of traditional genre boundaries and nuanced, moving expressions of emotion where there once was an inscrutable deadpan. - musicOMH, 9/10

Some listeners may find the album’s middle third to be meandering, lacking the immediacy of its front and back sides, but it inevitably serves as a much-needed bit of breathing room between the noxious environs of her more manic impulses. It is in these moments of seeming clash, of brutalism handled with fragility, that SOPHIE not only thrives but inspires. - Clash, 8/10

We wind up with an album much like its title; OIl of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides is difficult to comprehend, and even knowing the meaning doesn’t make “I love every person’s insides” any less weird. But there always is a meaning, and that’s what makes SOPHIE vital as an artist. - The Line of Best Fit, 7.5/10

An album that combines pop music and cutting-edge sound design like no-one else. - Resident Advisor, 8.6/10

In its flows and breakings, it echoes and repeats a fractured self, locating this fracture as something aimed toward futurity, toward a new image of pop music, toward a new mode of being and becoming, toward a new way of moving limbs on a dancefloor with others. It’s incredible. - tinymixtapes, 9/10

SOPHIE's debut album OIL OF EVERY PEARL's UN-INSIDES plays with pop motifs, not as parody, but to create the catchiest form of self expression. - Pop Matters, 9/10

The nine-minute closer ‘Whole New World/Pretend World’ is where SOPHIE underlines her intention to dominate, with production flex after production flex. - Loud and quiet, 8/10

Art isn’t immediately good just because it’s progressive or moral, but OIL OF EVERY PEARL's UN-INSIDES isn’t moralising. It’s an invocation, a diarising, the personal becoming political through its own pertinence. - The 405, 9/10