Oil Of Every Pearl's Un Insides

Considering SOPHIEs influence on electronic and pop music in the 2010s, its hard to believe that Oil of Every Pearls Un-Insides is only the producers debut album. The music collected on Product emphasized whimsical artificiality, using it as candy-coated armor that expressed SOPHIEs queerness and originality in equally affected and affecting ways. On the producers first proper album, SOPHIE juxtaposes shiny surfaces and what lies beneath them. Oil of Every Pearls Un-Insides begins with the manifesto Its Okay to Cry, a single that, upon its October 2017 release, felt and sounded drastically different than the producers previous music. Instead of the helium-pitched vocals, it features SOPHIEs own voice for the first time while softly unfolding synths turn small but profound realizations into something epic. While nothing else on the album is quite so vulnerable, or close to conventional pop, Its Okay to Cry is the perfect prologue to Oil of Every Pearls Un-Insides. Working with pop stars ranging from Charli XCX to Madonna hasnt blunted SOPHIEs music in the slightest -- in fact, its even bolder, particularly on the albums first half. On Is It Cold in the Water? and Infatuation, the producer embellishes on Its Okay to Crys widescreen intimacy, transforming deep synth grooves and diva vocals into mutant pop ballads that are all the more gorgeous for their strangeness. SOPHIE complements these reflective moments with the hard-edged mischief of Faceshopping, which uses ever-changing lyrics and torquing synths to express how an authentic identity can be created through aesthetic choices, and the raunchy Ponyboy, which sets the erotic possibilities of those identities to a heaving beat. Despite these radical shifts, SOPHIE never sounds indecisive. Where Product felt like a collection of alien pop hits, Oil of Every Pearls Un-Insides abounds with interludes, passages, and major statements that allow the producer to dig deeper on the albums second half. The dissolution telegraphed by Not Okays malfunctioning rhythms and vocals morphs into the liminal space of Pretending, a six-minute dronescape that suggests an idea -- or identity -- coming into being with a mood thats equally blissful and anxious. The dualities grow even more complex on Whole New World/Pretend World, a collage of sugary pop, sirens, self-destructing electronics, and clouds of wordless vocals that falls somewhere between a beginning and a warning. Fortunately, SOPHIE takes a moment to celebrate the joys of imagination and reinvention on Immaterial, a shout-out to misfit boys and girls that sounds like a party with Prince, Basement Jaxx, and Hatsune Miku at the top of the guest list. While SOPHIEs music has never been simple, Oil of Every Pearls Un-Insides complexities and reinventions make it a remarkable debut album that reveals more with each listen. ~ Heather Phares