How Cold The Water Is: How the Late SOPHIE Created a Whole New, Immaterial World
Very rarely does an artist produce an album that is so different, so strange, and so brilliant that they bring an entire subgenre into our collective cultural vernacular. SOPHIE’s one and (tragically) only vocal album essentially created hyperpop as it is known, in a whirlwind of synths, noise, and utterly mind-bending songs.
OIL OF EVERY PEARL’S UN-INSIDES
SOPHIE
Hyperpop / Deconstructed Club | 2018
SOPHIE’s career until 2018 was well received, if sadly under-reported. Her first single appeared in 2011, and she also began producing tracks for Charli XCX, Vince Staples, Kim Petras, and even Madonna. When her debut album PRODUCT was finally released in 2015, it blew open an electronic industry that had grown stale in the wake of party-dance that had taken over the industry.
Experimentation and industrial elements had been bubbling in the background of dance and electronica since their respective inceptions, but to actually make those sounds prominent in something mainstream audiences would actually listen to was quite the task. Thankfully, forward thinkers like Charli and Staples would catapult that sound into the pop space, giving SOPHIE a chance to truly bust the scene wide open.
It’s Okay to Cry
“It’s Okay To Cry” is the awe-inspiring opening to this symphony of human emotion. An exquisite, emotional pop ballad, the song is graced by the celestial vocals of none other than SOPHIE herself, marking the first time anyone had heard her voice on a recording. Delving into the profound revelation of her true essence as a transgender woman, it serves as an ode to the indescribable beauty within all of us, urging every person who hears it to embrace their authentic selves, and that it is indeed okay to cry. SOPHIE’s verses cascade in whispers, guiding us toward an exhilarating crescendo of the boisterous chorus, where the bass surges like a tidal wave. The bridge unveils SOPHIE’s soul in its rawest form, before the final chorus arrives, a massive wall of emotion and iridescent production that becomes a sublime duet with Cecile Believe.
Ponyboy
The transition between “It’s Okay To Cry” and the hardcore noise of the sexually charged, BDSM-themed “Ponyboy” artfully shocks you into the world of SOPHIE, and its abrasiveness comments on the incessant societal stigmatization endured by the LGBTQ+ community. With an industrial soundscape that delves into the depths of bondage, “Ponyboy” boldly proclaims the irrelevance of conventional gender norms. The massive bassline signals incessantly, like MOABs detonating on the dancefloor in a relentless onslaught. SOPHIE’s voice presents as an amalgam of metallic echoes, and is expertly paired with a serrated synthesizer that’s as horrific as it is splendid.
Faceshopping
The sharp, metallic sounds of “Faceshopping” perfectly compliment the affectless vocals about plastic surgery and changing oneself. This is further expanded in the bridge as the lyrics discuss seeing oneself from your dreams—your true self. The theme of change as reality is exemplified by the repeated line “I’m real when I shop my face,” before releasing us to the all-out bombast of stabbing synths, laser sound effects, and booming bass kicks. It’s a banger.
Is It Cold in the Water?
It may be confusing to many of you that this track affects me so strongly, but “Is It Cold in the Water?” is one of the most emotionally devastating songs I’ve ever listened to. Cecile Believe sings in soaring vocals over seemingly random jumps of what sound like deconstructed and then hastily and haphazardly reassembled club synths. The content of the lyrics are even more crushing—especially given SOPHIE’s untimely and tragic death—about the uncertainty of life, and the dark void that surrounds us:
I’m freezing / I’m burning / I’ve left my home
Soft ache, me / Earth shaking / I feel alone
I’m falling / Depths endless / Worlds turn to smoke
One hundred years flicker / I kiss the snow
I’m swimming / I’m breathing / Evaporate
I’m liquid / I’m floating / Into the blue
Believe’s operatic delivery of the chorus, “is it cold in the water?” over and over, repeats incessantly, never relenting, even overtop the final verse. It climbs in intensity and desperation until, very much like the lyrics desire, it becomes nothing.
Infatuation
And aptly titled song, “Infatuation” was a track I was obsessed with when I first heard it. The almost-bizarre delivery of the chorus, with whispered “infatuation, who are you deep down,” before blasting “I WANNA KNOW!” It made me laugh, weirdly, but also made me want to know everything about it. The mood musically is considerably more curious and playful than the previous track, though a pervasive darkness remains, exploring the dangers of obsession, and an all-too-common desperation to truly understand someone else. Both eerie and calming, the synths sound liquid, and build to a critical mass, before echoing into the distance.
Not Okay
“Not Okay” is one of the more experimental moments on the album, and as I’ve scanned the internet, also one of the most divisive. Futuristic, alien sound effects and industrial beats are peppered with noises that haven’t been heard since 1990’s house music was a thing. I love it as a weird little aside, but if you don’t, it’s only 1:48, so it’s perfect either way.
Pretending
“Pretending” showcases SOPHIE’s variety of production talents, including some of the grimiest industrial electronic moments on the album, as well as some of the most hauntingly beautiful, ethereal ones. It’s disturbingly soothing, if there is such a thing, while at other points it becomes a tense drama by introducing screeching, incoherent vocals covered in glitchy noise. It’s an incredible ambient piece, and the perfect turning point from the previous operatic section of the album to the more pop-influenced close.
Immaterial
The penultimate track is a grandiose pure-pop song that will result in a spontaneous dance party, wherever and whenever it’s playing. The vocals are produced and mixed to give them an extra bubblegum sweetness that will most assuredly cause a diabetic coma if played one too many times on repeat. The song is utter bliss, a complete release of all burden, replaced only with the lightness of being. The lyrics discuss that unburdening, the freedom of being totally separated from your physical self to be simply you. The you that only you know. The practice of self-creation allows us to be beyond our bodies. The clap track, the bouncing bass and synths, the infinitely repeatable chorus, it’s an unforgettable song that resounds forever.
Whole New World / Pretend World
WHOLE NEW WORLD!
The final (9-minute!!!) track explodes from the fade out of the sticky sweet “Immaterial” with a return to the hardcore electronics of “Ponyboy” and “Faceshopping.” But as overtly abrasive as the track is, it seems to be inviting us to explore what was to come—bad sadly never will be—for SOPHIE. This was the soundtrack to her world, a new world, a non-corporeal, immaterial world, radical and totally free. As the runtime extends, the sounds begin to breakdown into a hellish landscape of harsh noise and eardrum-bursting bass-and-metal stabs, where the “whole new world” chant becomes that of a deranged cult, fervently ignoring the alarms going off all around them. The sounds degrade further to the “Pretend World” section, which turns the industrial elements first into ambient, Tim Hecker-esque symphonies, then into what almost feels like genteel field recordings played over a mesh of violet noise.
The tragedy that we will never hear what was next for SOPHIE is a fact that breaks my heart every time I remember it, and every time I listen to this album. You would think that would make me listen to it less, but no. This is SOPHIE’s artifact now, that we have forever. It has meant, and will continue to mean, so much to so many, especially in the community, that it seems trivial for me to add platitudes now.
But I will say this: this album is a masterpiece, written by a genius taken from us far too soon, and it is one of the most important and essential pieces of music I have ever listened to.
