I was thinking of Venus rising with the sun as I had observed in days last week. I could see the sun was lighting the horizon to the southeast as I look out my kitchen window. I went online to see what the sky charts showed. I saw the eastern sky and southern skies had no Venus. I moved the view around to the west. The Moon was bright to the west northwest. I thought of going out to the front porch, but I'd have to unlock the front door and step out into the cold.
I decided to go up the front stairs. I was thinking of the stairs the narrator in "A Voyage to Arturus" went up went he was getting ready for his journey into the sky. He looked out a window at each level. I looked out the window on the second floor after pulling back the yellow curtain. But, the Moon was through a screen and textured. I went up the next flight of stairs holding on to the railing. I was in the dark. I pulled back the curtain and looked through the wiggly old glass to the bright, cold moon.
"Pale Hecarte who rules the night," I remembered from some pagan character, or, Shakespeare.
I turned around and went down the stairs in the dark backwards, and holding on to the rail. I remembered a nurse online warning, "you are one fall away from a nursing home."
I had climbed up to observe the Moon, not to sacrifice myself in worship.
Later that morning I read that a 34 year old woman who created dance music was living in Greece and had also gone up to look at the same full moon. Sophie tripped and fell and died. Requiescat in pace et amore.
We were not looking at the moon at the same time. The reports say she fell at about 4 am Greek time which must be about four hours ahead of my US Eastern Standard Time.
SOPHIE, the influential British producer who molded electronic music into bracingly original avant-garde pop, died in an accidental fall Saturday morning (January 30), a representative confirms. SOPHIE, who was 34, died at roughly 4 a.m. in Athens, Greece, where the artist had been living. In a statement, the labels Transgressive and Future Classic wrote: “True to her spirituality she had climbed up to watch the full moon and accidentally slipped and fell. She will always be here with us.”
SOPHIE emerged on the European club circuit in the early 2010s, breaking out with a string of inventive, house-adjacent singles including 2013’s “Nothing More to Say.” Next single “Bipp,” a stark and disembodied anthem, signalled a new direction and brought international acclaim, both from dance DJs and in the year-end lists of music publications across genres. Subsequent tracks “Lemonade” and “Hard” mixed distinctive vocals and abrasive sound design into SOPHIE’s music, forging a tactile twist on pop. SOPHIE’s 2014 collaboration with PC Music founder A.G. Cook and Quinn Thomas, QT’s “Hey QT,” embodied the new form, a hyperactive sugar rush of unashamedly euphoric hooks.
The 2015 compilation PRODUCT collected these singles and added new music such as “Just Like We Never Said Goodbye,” which pointed to yet another phase of innovation. In 2018, SOPHIE—who prefers not to use gendered or nonbinary pronouns, according to one representative—released a debut album proper, Oil of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides, prominently featuring SOPHIE’s own vocals. Until then, the producer’s identity was kept mysterious, but in press around the debut, SOPHIE stepped into the frame of videos and photo shoots, coming out as trans. The record was widely hailed as a landmark in forward pop music, earning a Best Dance/Electronic Album nomination at the 2019 Grammys and recognition in album of the decade lists the following year.
SOPHIE’s outsize influence on pop and electronic music stems from not only this solo discography but also an expansive collaborative catalog. This repertoire includes productions for Vince Staples, Madonna, and, prominently, Charli XCX, who said in 2019: “There are very few artists who make me feel something up my core and make me wanna cry. Justice and Uffie made me feel something when I was 14, and I didn’t really have that feeling again until I met Sophie. I felt this rush of: Fuck, this is the coolest shit I have ever heard.” Advertisement
In a statement, SOPHIE’s representative wrote: “At this time respect and privacy for the family is our priority. We would also ask for respect for SOPHIE’s fanbase, and to treat the private nature of this news with sensitivity.”
This article was originally published on Saturday, January 30 at 6:52 a.m. Eastern. It was last updated the same day at 7:40 a.m. Eastern.
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