Self-titled SOPHIE, it will be released via her labels Transgressive and Future Classic, which follows a cryptic tease on the artist’s YouTube channel on Friday.
Today (24 June), a new self-titled album of previously unheard, unreleased tracks by SOPHIE has been announced for release on 27 September.
Alongside the album, a new track called Reason Why has been released, featuring Kim Petras and BC Kingdom. It will come via Transgressive and Future Classic, and is the first posthumous music since the Scottish artist tragically passed away in January 2021.
In an Instagram statement on a new handle @MSMSMSM_FOREVER, SOPHIE’s family said: “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 continued. “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.”
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The album’s announcement follows a mysterious hour long video uploaded to SOPHIE’s official YouTube channel on Friday, 21 June, which simply gave a date and a time across a range of timezones in London, Berlin, LA, New York and Sydney (June 24, 6:30 p.m. in London).
In 2021, her brother and collaborator, Ben Long, announced his plans to posthumously release some of SOPHIE’s tracks, saying that there are “literally hundreds of tracks” that had not been heard by the public. “The most important thing for us is doing right by SOPHIE – putting stuff out that SOPHIE was happy with and would want to be out.”
A pioneer of modern pop, SOPHIE’s use of bold synth sounds and leftfield sonics has left her fingerprints scattered across the contemporary music landscape. They are found in production collaborations with the likes of Charli XCX, Shygirl and Arca, her own solo music, and the nascent hyperpop movement, while her use of technology and sonics to explore her gender identity was inspiration to many.
Revisit our 2018 cover interview with SOPHIE here, and listen to Reason Why (feat. Kim Petras and BC Kingdom) below.
