Grammy-nominated electronic artist Sophie, dead at 34 after ‘terrible accident’

Grammy-nominated electronic artist Sophie, dead at 34 after ‘terrible accident’

by
Sophie (Photo: Transgressive Records)
Sophie (Photo: Transgressive Records)

The electronic music community was shaken on Saturday morning with the news that Sophie, a pioneering experimental pop artist and producer who worked with Madonna, Nicki Minaj, Camila Cabello, Charli XCX, Vince Staples, Kim Petras and many others, had died in a “terrible accident”.

According to statements by Sophie’s label, Transgressive, and publicist Ludovica Ludinatrice, Sophie was in Athens, Greece, “climbed to see the full moon” and then “slipped and fell”, dying at 4 am local time. A police spokesman confirmed to the Associated Press that Sophie fell from the balcony of an apartment and that there was no suspicion of a crime in the artist’s death. The visionary British music – who made history as one of the first three openly transgender women to be nominated for a Grammy and, according to Pitchfork, chose not to use gender or non-binary pronouns – was 34 years old.

Sophie Xeon was born on September 17, 1986 in Glasgow, Scotland, and started in a band called Motherland before going solo in 2013, soon gaining a buzz on SoundCloud and critical acclaim by the singles “Nothing More to Say” and “Bipp” / “Elle”; the latter ranked 17th on the Pitchfork year-end list and 1st on the XLR8 list. Sophie’s big professional breakthrough came in 2015, with the placement of the track “Lemonade” in a McDonald’s commercial, the launch of a fruitful artistic partnership with Charli XCX and a high-level production job at Madonna’s Rebel heart single “Bitch I’m Madonna”. In November of that year, Sophie also released the official debut album products.

Sophie spent the next two years focusing on the production, composition and remixing of other artists, but returned in 2017 with the anthem “It’s Okay to Cry”; the video for this track was the first to show the artist’s face, previously reclusive and largely anonymous, and served as a welcome statement from Sophie as a member of the trans community. Sophie’s complete second year effort, Oil of each pearl inside, later received a Best Electronic Album / Dance nomination at the 61st Grammy Awards.

Sophie was heralded by a high-speed surrealist sound that brought mainstream and underground together, incorporating elements of Japanese and Korean pop, Eurodisco, UK garage, Y2K pop and house and hip-hop from the 90s. Sophie often avoided samples, instead to use Elektron Monomachine and Ableton technology to build waveform instruments that mimicked the unorthodox sounds of metal, water and plastic. “Sophie was a pioneer in a new sound, one of the most influential artists of the past decade. Not only for ingenious production and creativity, but also for the message and visibility that has been achieved. An icon of liberation ”, said the artist’s statement.

Upon hearing the shocking news of Sophie’s death, many colleagues and famous admirers went to social media to pay tribute.

Read more on Yahoo Entertainment:

Follow Lyndsey on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Amazon and Spotify

Source