Sophie

Armed with only a minimal array of CDJ:s and a select few other digital music machines, Sophie has very recently done something few of us thought possible: rejuvenated the uncompromising, unforgiving and all but inpenetrable UK club scene. In order to survive in this most Hobbesian of environments, you really only have one choice. Hop on one of the latest trends and do it better and badder than everyone else. Or, you can risk doing something original, smash a few conventions while you're at it and pray to the musical deity that people will begin to sway to the unfamiliar. Fat chance, right? Trust me. When you need a freshly tossed dance floor you should call Sophie.

One thing that strikes me when listening to Bipp is how everything is carefully tuned - from the drums to the bass and the lead and even the little metallic sprinkles - and twists and turns to the drive of the song. With electronic dance music, the different layers are usually very apparently there. You, on the other hand, seem to make it seamless, with just the right amount of interesting Kelvin-Helmholtz-instabilities between the layers. How do you do it? Do you have to bring it all together in your mind before you start fiddling with the instruments?

In terms of splitting/layers within music, absolutely. I'm rather fixated on this idea of a a monophonic, elastic, full frequency range morphing composition. The language of electronic music shouldn't still be referencing obsolete instruments like kick drum or clap. No one's kicking or clapping. They don't have to! So it makes more sense in my mind to discard those ideas of polyphony and traditional roles of instrumentation. It seems wacky to me that most DAW software is still designed around having drums/bass/keyboard/vocal presets for production. That's what I find liberating about the Monomachine. It's just waveforms that can be pushed into shapes and materials and sequenced. Just like a sculpture machine. Not like a computer pretending to be a band form the 70's or whatever.



Are the metallic sprinkles or any of the other Bipp sounds made on the Monomachine? Any of the Lemonade sounds?

Yeah, Lemonade is a fair bit of Monomachine. Some of the essential Bipp sounds are Monomachine also. The elastic parts. Most ideas for sounds are initially worked out on the Monomachine. Sometimes those techniques will then be replicated on the computer if a certain soft-synth is more stable or flexible in a certain way. But I really like the Monomachine for two things. Sketches and sound design. I sketch out loops/rhythms and melodic ideas. By being limited to 6 monophonic lines you have to constantly take away things that aren't important or adding interest. Also the fact that all percussive and melodic elements are synthesized and you have the ability to copy machine or copy melody means that a melodic line can become a percussive or vice versa or the material of a sound can be altered or layered. The other aspect is sound design and obviously having various synthesis methods being controlled by the same group of parameters gives you a lot of control and flexibility with regard to tones and timbres. You can just take a bassline made out of elastic and try it in metal. At least that's the way I think of it. It's the machine I feel most fluent working on if I have an idea for a sound. I can experiment with it most quickly there. Like I've synthesized ideas for latex, balloons, bubbles, metal, plastic, elastic all on the Mono. I wish it had the Overbridge thing too.



Where and how were you introduced to the Elektron instruments in the first place?

I researched online and then spent a long long time playing with firstly the drum machine and then the Monomachine. Awesome, powerful sound design tools. This is the way I want DAW's to be designed in the future.



When I say Swedish synths, what image pops into your head?

I have to say I've never thought of national characters of synthesizers but perhaps more characters of certain brands. I guess I'm really only interested in clean and powerful sound. Complete control rather than characterful instruments which basically means noisy and uncontrollable in a lot of people’s minds. You can be a lot more intentional with clean instruments because you have the autonomy to add artefacts such as distortion or random detuning if you desire but the difference is that those are your choices rather than the instrument's automatic choices. The more choices you actively make, the more meaningful your end product is?



What synth or other piece of equipment is your bread-and-butter staple?

I'm on a low carb diet. It's literally just Monomachine and software right now.



If you could wobble a real-world phenomenon (other than people) with a Monomachine parameter, what would that be (and which parameter)?

Okay, how about a wavetable style thing where one could adapt the materials or textures of everyday objects? One day my hairdryer would be black plastic then the next day chrome then glass. I guess I could also then make my clothes different materials everyday. Could also get some freaky new materials by morphing between them.



Please explain the beauty of CDJ and how they compare to the SL-1200!

Well I can just turn up with a USB stick with every version of everything I've ever made on and feel fairly confident that the equipment will work as planned. Also you have the ability to use it like a sampler. Just trigger different bits of audio. It feels quite robust and light weight and easy to update with new material. Also I have my USB sticks attached to my clothes so they can't really go missing. In theory. Well that and the fact that vinyl doesn't sound as good!



The pope of atheism, Richard Dawkins, claims that life needs to be digital, as expressed in the nucleotides of the DNA molecule. Life is digital, if you will. Do you agree?

Yeah QT.



Interview by Daniel Sterner

