SOPHIE interview

Thanks to whomever was responsible for the SOPHIE interview on the front page. I’ve been hoping you would get around to him as he has such an obvious Elektron sound to his productions.

Saw him at the Simple Things festival in Bristol last weekend and while he didn’t play Bipp (one of the most innovative tracks of recent years), he killed it with reworkings of the rest of his stuff.

I was in two minds about picking up a Mono or an A4 as my second Elektron box to join my OT. Definitely going to go for a Mono now!

Cheers!

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Yeah, I was really happy to see the Sophie interview on here too. Love his stuff.

I was surprised, though – I had never picked out the “Elektron sound” in his tracks. I guess I can hear the Mono in Bipp now, but I don’t think I would’ve noticed it w/o this, Based on other interviews I thought he just used VSTs.

My favorite part, a unique way of approaching music that he really nails: “I’m rather fixated on this idea of a a monophonic, elastic, full frequency range morphing composition.”

This isn’t the kind of thing I would normally think to seek out, but I’m really impressed with the sound design and sequencing. I think it would be great if Elektron did some “in the studio” videos with some of these pros to demonstrate how they use the gear. I’m sure that sales would grow exponentially if people could see how other people are using Elektron gear for their productions…not that Dataline doesn’t inspire a great amount of gear lust on his own, but more applications and styles=more interest.

As an aside, I am impressed and embarrassed as a native English speaker about the higher level language I see Elektron using in interviews. Maybe it’s just because I’m from America, but I always see words and concepts used in these interviews that I think most native speakers wouldn’t even grok.

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Sorry for being negative (I really tried to STFU, I swear!), but to my ears Sophie sounds just horrible. Like, that Lemonade track must be in the 5 worst things I’ve ever heard kind of horrible. Sounds like something a 5-year girl would listen to - in Hell.

Maybe I’m just too old to understand…

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I’m with Barfunkel on this.

Enjoyed the interview though.

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Yeah I think his whole aesthetic is better in theory than execution.

That Mono tho.

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Yeah, it’s… It’s pretty bad.

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Sophie’s a guy?

Same here! I thought he was brilliant but my wife was noticably irritated and couldn’t wait to get away from that stage! I guess its really polarising music for a lot of people. Definitely agree that its very Elektron sounding.

me three. i can’t help thinking there’s a big emperors clothes aspect to a lot of current ‘bass music’, or EPM, or whatever it’s called at the moment. it reads really well, and is often technically it’s interesting, but i wouldn’t listen to it for fun, or imagine dancing to it.

are there parties where people play whole sets of this kind of thing? i think that would drive me crackers! can’t imagine getting into a good mindless dance to this. but maybe that’s not what it’s for?

confused of london! :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Lemonade :dizzy_face:

No need to censor the negativity - I get where you (and the subsequent replies) are coming from. That said, I’ll try to explain a little of what I like.

For me, the “in Hell” part is important. Sophie takes the silliest sheen of pop and bumps it up to another level. I guess if you don’t have any love for bubblegum in the first place, it’s not going to be your thing.

Some of what’s interesting is the stripped back arrangement. At its best, it suggests a whole “normal” pop track with only a couple strange elements. It’s just coming from a different angle in a way that gets me. And there’s lots of cool sound design in there - it sounds tangible to me.

Anyway, check out Bipp before Lemonade.

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+1
Not exactly faves but I do appreciate the material. I can understand why others wouldn’t. Kind of reminds me of Lindsay Lowend and Kastle which took me a bit of listening to acquire the taste.

I like how he said “no one is kicking and no one is clapping”. I don’t really agree, because I do kick and clap :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: , but point taken with respect to sound design.

I think the fact that opinion is so polarised is a sign of its greatness.

Sometimes I like to listen to music that I find unpleasant. I find my mind is stimulated because I am reflecting on why I don’t like it and I get inspired to write.

That doesn’t apply to Sophie’s stuff though which I genuinely love.

Bipp is incredibly well crafted, in my opinion. The sounds are plastic, elastic, pvc squeaks filled with character and orginality. There is no padding - the structure is laid bare and once it is done, it’s done. The hyper-bubblegum pitched vocals are perfectly entwined with the bouncing, morphing structure of the sound design. It’s futuristic and subversive and cheeky and a little unsettling.

The vast majority of music sounds derivative these days. It’s a real pleasure to hear something unique, that makes you sit up and think WTF is THIS?

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This music is pop, yes, but if pop in général is poor regarding to creativity (Even if there’s à lot of fun), Sophie bring really good sound ingeneering, so it’s nice things that people who don’t know this kind of sounds can discovered it thru the music they like and listen. It’s a kind of soft education to improove the aesthetic sound level of pop creation.

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His music makes me want to jam ice picks into my ears, but any music that uses the MNM so much always gets an honest listen from me (a self diagnosed MNM junkie).

No matter what our opinions are, some people must like what he’s doing. I mean, here we are talking about HIS interview, after all!

maybe i’m wak but i like the lemonade song… it gets stuck in your head whether u like it or not.
guess we’ll never know… theres no mention of it in the interview but does lemonade mean sophie has a piss fetish? i like to think so, mmmm that’s hot.
damn i could go a yellow snow cone or nice warm cup of excretion right now
sluuuuurp

I like it. It’s fun and sounds a bit different from most other stuff our there right now.

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Basically the whole PC music thing is a re-hash of old school electro pop like this stuff I’ve posted below but with modern production techniques and a sheen of “artcore” pretension on the top. That said I quite like it :slight_smile: