Village Underground, London
In black PVC and red lipstick, the producer’s live debut proper delivered music that was immediate, compelling and genuinely new
Previous live outings for Sophie have featured, according to reports, a drag performer called Ben Woozy, and a girl reading a GSCE textbook while holding an aubergine to her ear like a phone. For the producer who has provided the soundtrack for a McDonald’s advert in the US and been enlisted by Madonna in the studio, the stops he might pull out for this live debut proper were anyone’s guess, but it turns out tonight’s show is low on spectacle – unless you count the fact that Sophie (AKA Samuel Long) arrives clad in black PVC, white foundation and red lipstick.
Like his friends from the mystique-loving London collective PC Music, Sophie’s output features pitched-up vocals that pay lip service to unreconstructed girliness (topics include boys and shopping), noises so manic and maximalist they resemble cartoon sound effects, and a spasmodic, clanging rhythm that brings to mind the sound made by a crashing computer program. That gimmicky aesthetic might be seductive, but it doesn’t necessarily form the basis of Sophie’s appeal. Oscillating between tracks from Sophie’s productions for Charli XCX and Liz, his 2015 debut album, Product – from the anthemic (Just Like We Never Said Goodbye) to the nightmarish (Hard), and intervals of DJing that introduce shades of disco and EDM, what ties everything together is a hyper-consumable pop sensibility. Synth lines and drum sounds are pushed to thrilling new levels of lucidity.
Continue reading...by Rachel Aroesti via Electronic music | The Guardian
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