London-based producer Sophie (aka Samuel Long) describes himself as a sound sculpturist, basing his music on “raw wave forms” and bass lines rather than samples and drums to evoke things like moisturizer, energy drinks, molecular cooking, balloons and, in the case of the song Hard, getting a boner from a latex glove yanking a ponytail.
That probably sounds somewhat abstract, but unlike more ascetic, cerebral producers, Sophie’s world is full of hyper-colour. It’s heavily indebted to the cheery aesthetics of European bubblegum pop, aggressively playing up the genre’s artifice through his emphasis on sonic tactility.
Songs with chirpy vocals like Bipp and Vyzee are like warped funhouse mirror reflections on modern pop. A fluid line between zany cuteness and pulverizing menace, female and male energy, and the recognizable and the surreal keeps the listener on guard.
Product is Sophie’s debut LP, collecting four previously released singles plus four new ones in a concise introduction to a producer who has quickly crafted a style and perspective all his own.
Top track: Hard
