“It’s Okay to Cry,” the first single from SOPHIE’s 2018 album OIL OF EVERY PEARL’S UN-INSIDES, starts as a whisper. The gentle affirmation soon becomes a howl, carried by a sonic wall of bubbling synths, until her soft vocal tenses like a tightrope. Through her tears — our shared tears — “It’s Okay to Cry” asserts that supportive community can lift us out of our despair, as we come to know and love our truest selves.
When I started hormone replacement therapy about six months ago, the first thing I felt when I put one of those little green estrogen pills behind my tongue was sweet relief. Then came waves of heartbreak. In those six months, I also lost friends, employment, and other support structures. I had moments where I didn’t want to be here.
But what have I gained? Well, besides new tits and some attitude, the rest is still unwritten, but I love where I’m at right now. It is taking a fucking village. After all, no matter who you are, life gets life-y, and we’re allowed to be imperfect. As SOPHIE sings, “We’ve all got a dark place / Maybe if, if we shine some light there / It won’t be so hard.”
“Faceshopping”
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On “Faceshopping,” the third of the singles on OIL OF EVERY PEARL’S UN-INSIDES, SOPHIE’s pitched up voice slyly sings, “My shop is the face I front / I’m real when I shop my face.” The vocal alteration and the lyric play challenge our perception of what is “real,” reminding us that the image we cultivate for the world is a performance. From there, the artist’s writhing production enacts this revelation even further; the instrumental, an ever unfurling array of raucous, steely synths, is as much a “face” as the one the lyrics invent. When the track reaches its glittery bridge, SOPHIE has switched on us, allowing a new, softer, crooning self to sing: “Do you feel what I feel? / Do you see what I see?”
