A new posthumous new single from SOPHIE has been released – listen to ‘Exhilarate’ – featuring Bibi Bourelly below.
The uplifting song is set to feature on SOPHIE’s second and final studio album, which will arrive on September 27 via Transgressive and Future Classic (pre-order/pre-save here).
It follows on from the previously released tracks, ‘One More Time’, ‘Berlin Nightmare’, featuring musician and vocalist Evita Manji, and ‘Reason Why’ which featured Kim Petras.
‘Exhilarate’ was written by SOPHIE, Bibi, and Kennedi Lykken. A statement describes the song as “the soaring sound of two collaborators and friends giving each other a speed boost, carrying themselves to new heights together, a theme that’s central to SOPHIE.”
Listen to the track here:
Speaking about the forthcoming album in a statement, SOPHIE’s family wrote: “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 centre of our worlds’.
“Sophie didn’t often speak publicly of her private life, preferring to put everything she wanted to articulate in her music. It feels only right to share with the world the music she hoped to release, in the belief that we can all connect with her in this, the form she loved most.”
The message continued: “This album has always told the story of Sophie’s musical journey, a cacophony of skill and creative vision eclipsing time and genre. Her unique sound world moves at an emotional level, encouraging the listener to intuitively embrace the ever-evolving landscape of light and dark, soft and hard, to the end of self-love and joyful self-acceptance.
“Emphasising contradictions of sound and material, Sophie’s work supersedes the pure aural to create the dimension she dreamed of. Now, it holds another poignant meaning, it tells a life story, from mysterious unknown, through wild clublands, to euphoric materiality.”
The statement concluded: “Sophie gave all of herself to her music. It’s here that she can always be found.”
SOPHIE died in a fall in Athens, Greece in January 2021. She was 34 years old.
SOPHIE rose to prominence as part of the pioneering pop production team PC Music in the mid-2010s, when she worked with the likes of A.G. Cook and Charli XCX. The latter paid tribute to the producer on the song ‘So I’ from her latest album ‘Brat’.
The track explores Charli’s regrets about the insecurities that prevented her from collaborating as closely with SOPHIE as she wanted to. “There was a lot of distance between us because I was in awe of her and wanted to impress her,” she told The Face earlier this year.
Elsewhere, St. Vincent paid homage to SOPHIE on her most recent LP ‘All Born Screaming’. The artist – aka Annie Clark – was moved to write the track ‘Sweetest Fruit’ after reading an article about the producer’s tragic death.
‘SOPHIE’ will serve as the follow-up to 2018’s ‘Oil Of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides’.
In a four-star review, NME praised the record for “crossing boundaries of pop music and chasing transcendence”. It read: “SOPHIE achieves the rare feat of making abstract, difficult electronic music that hits you straight in the heart.”
