I think you feel more liberated in a foreign country. You're more open. You understand less about the social constructs that exist in a certain place, so you take people more at face value, and you're also taken more at face value, which makes you more able to be yourself.
Sophie
I hate my birthday. I don't like to celebrate it much. But, if someone wants to throw me a surprise party, that normally works better.
I'm always trying to encapsulate how we, as emotional beings, interact with the world and the machines and technology around us - being able to emote through those things. They're not antithetical or mutually exclusive.
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 contradictory than factual details.
The pop-music video is one of the most powerful communication tools we have. Most people have access to a phone, and you can click a video and absorb it in three minutes. If it's potent enough, you can take in the message or have some sort of experience in multiple dimensions, the music with the image.
In music, I don't think there's any need to be an all-rounder and do everything yourself. Play to your strengths, and do what you feel. Or do whatever the material itself demands. In this case, I felt like it would benefit from me singing, and I wanted it to have that sound.
'Lemonade' is made out of bubbling, fizzing, popping, and 'Hard' is made from metal and latex - they are sort of sculptures in this way. I synthesize all sounds except for vocals using raw waveforms and different synthesis methods as opposed to using samples.
The 'Ponyboy' single is coming out next because it's the other bit of the pole of the record. Sort of everything I'm interested in happens on that axis - everything I'm interested in this material happens on that axis, and so I was really excited to tour 'It's Okay to Cry' and 'Ponyboy.'
The thing that separates Sophie from the music I do for other people is that it's 100% written by me. In the past, I've written my songs and then asked friends if they could record the vocals. I didn't want to use my own voice, because other people have much better voices. I was hearing the music with a voice that I don't have.
Transness is taking control to bring your body more in line with your soul and spirit so the two aren't fighting against each other and struggling to survive.
I think being completely authentic about the time you live in is something that I would view as a career-long objective - to find out what is authentically this moment.
An experimental idea doesn't have to be separated from a mainstream context. The really exciting thing is where those two things are together. That's where you can get real change.
I heard it from a friend of mine who told me about a group of people where he grew up in Detroit who called themselves Pony Boys that souped up Nitro cars.
Contextualize the music. I really hope to do more of that.
To keep on collaborating with my friends from Cecile Believe and FluCt who inspire me a lot and who are part of the team putting this whole show together. I'm excited to have that kind of play.
