In 2013, a mysterious producer named Sophie released “Bipp,” a minimalist club track that sounded like it had been formed on another planet and squeezed through hyperdrive before arriving on ours. “Bipp” was black space latticed with radically strange objects: a rubbery squelch of a bass beat, a melodic line like a laser coated in latex, percussive punctuation marks that seemed to morph from plasma into steel. Sophie continued releasing singles, each one accompanied by a 3-D rendering of a ladderless slide. The objects looked the way the songs sounded, like uncanny candy—slick, chemical, jaw-breakingly hard.
At the time, not much was known about Sophie. She was associated with the collective PC Music, which specialized in the aggressively, gleefully synthetic. With the producer A. G. Cook, Sophie put out a catchy PC Music single called “Hey QT,” a promotional jingle for a fake energy drink, QT, which, in 2015, was distributed to concert attendees in a stunt at SXSW. This microera was a peak of absurd corporate branding in music—for the past few years, SXSW artists had performed inside a giant vending machine sponsored by Doritos. On the rare occasions when Sophie gave interviews, her answers played into the perception that the subversive intent of the PC Music project revolved around commerciality. She’d picked the name Sophie, she said, because it “tastes good and it’s like moisturizer.” Her influences were “shopping, mainly.” She wondered if music could work like a theme-park roller coaster, leaving you nauseated and laughing, then leading you to purchase a key ring. “Lemonade,” another brain-scrambling single, collected on a 2015 Sophie compilation called “Product,” appeared in a McDonald’s commercial for lemonade.
この記事は The New Yorker の September 30, 2024 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です ? サインイン
この記事は The New Yorker の September 30, 2024 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です? サインイン
LIFE ADVICE WITH ANIMAL ANALOGIES
Go with the flow like a dead fish.
CONNOISSEUR OF CHAOS
The masterly musical as mblages of Charles Ives
BEAUTIFUL DREAMERS
How the Brothers Grimm sought to awaken a nation.
THE ARTIFICIAL STATE
A different kind of machine politics.
THE HONEST ISLAND GREG JACKSON
Craint did not know when he had come to the island or why he had come.
THE SHIPWRECK DETECTIVE
Nigel Pickford has spent a lifetime searching for sunken treasure-without leaving dry land.
THE HOME FRONT
Some Americans are preparing for a second civil war.
PRESIDENT FOR SALE
On a mid-October Sunday not long ago sun high, wind cool-I was in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, for a book festival, and I took a stroll.
SYRIA'S EMPIRE OF SPEED
Bashar al-Assad's regime is now a narco-state reliant on sales of amphetamines.
TUCKER EVERLASTING
Trump's favorite pundit takes his show on the road.