Grammy-nominated musician Sophie, who died in a climbing accident in 2021, will release her latest self-titled album on September 27th via Transgressive and Future Classic.
The artist, who mixed pop sensibilities with an experimental electronic edge, had been working on Sophie for years with her brother Benny Long, and the album was nearly finished before her death. Long, who is listed as a co-producer on the project, helped bring it to completion with some of her closest collaborators.
The first single from the project, “Reason Why,” will be released alongside the announcement of “Sophie.” The song features BC Kingdom and Kim Petras, who worked with Sophie throughout her career and paid tribute to her in her 2023 Grammy acceptance speech.
Throughout her career, Sophie has redefined the boundaries of pop music, often balancing a dulcet sound with mechanical, harsh instrumentation. She rose to fame with the singles “Bipp” and “Lemonade,” and released her only solo album, “Oil of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides,” in 2018, which was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Dance/Electronic Album.
Transgressive released a statement, explaining that Sophie’s family had asked for their help in releasing her last album. Sophie’s family released a statement explaining why they wanted to make the project public. Read the full statement below:
“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 center of our worlds.
Sophie did not speak very publicly about her private life, preferring to put everything she wanted to express in her music. It feel it is only right to share with the world the music she wanted to release, trusting that we can all connect with her in the way she loved most.
This album has always told the story of Sophie’s musical journey, a cacophony of skills and creative vision that transcends time and genre. Her unique soundscapes shift on an emotional level, inviting the listener to intuitively embrace an ever-evolving landscape that ranges from light and dark, soft and hard, to self-love and joyful self-acceptance. Sophie’s work highlights the contradictions of sound and material, creating a dimension she only dreamed of beyond the purely auditory.
Now this work has another moving meaning: it tells the story of a life, from the mysterious unknown to the wild club landscapes to the euphoric and immaterial.