SOPHIE, the playful, maddening British electronic experimentalist, has a way of stoking thirst and then quenching it just enough. When I saw him live earlier this year, he’d let loose these gleeful bursts of twisted pop music before settling into a couple minutes of drone, seemingly while he chose a new song to play. He teases the media by being coy about pictures and interviews and by releasing songs at the frustratingly slow pace of around two a year. SOPHIE is annoying as shit, but then you get a brief glimpse, a taste of what he’s holding back, and it can make you feel better.
SOPHIE’s songs are catchy against all reason, which is why the mere mention of his name is enough to get “Bipp” stuck in my head and why I instantly knew his latest song, “Lemonade,” even though I’d heard it exactly one other time, played live, late at night, more than two months ago. The song struts along in a sort spoken-word hopscotch rhyme cadence before bursting into a high-pitched pop chorus. This part sounds like some forgotten single by an anonymous, manufactured early 2000s pop group: “I’ve got something to tell you/Hope you’ll understand/I never meant to hurt you/It wasn’t in my plans/It’s just that when I’m with you/Everything’s okay/I get that fizzy feeling/And I want lemonade.” How does it do this? How can music so instantly feel so familiar? I have no clue, but now I’m both thirsty as hell and partially quenched. The subliminal cues are out of control here. The infuriating cycle continues. Goddammit. Listen to “Lemonade” below:
