There will always be a point in one’s lifetime of listening to music that they will come across an artist and/or sound that is so pure, so honest, so rare, and so impeccably flawless that you stop. You do nothing but listen to their music and pray to the gods of sound that they just keep the momentum going for the rest of eternity.
However, while this rare occasion in music is precious, there is the contradicting emotion you feel towards this particular artist as well. Half of you wants to do anything to spread their gospel to anyone and everyone all across the board, and the other half wants to keep it all to yourself so it can be your little secret. That little selfish side of you wants to keep them as a place to escape and feel like you have a weapon against the masses of people listening to the same things over and over.
But the former ends up outweighing the latter, and you become so energetic about this music it that sharing it over and over again almost becomes detrimentally stimulating. It becomes a rush of power that springs from showing the music off to everyone you meet.
With that being said, may we introduce you to one of these bands: Sofi Tukker. Sofi Tukker consists of Sophie Hawley-Weld and Tucker Halpern, a duo who met and started producing at Brown University together, and who have taken the blogosphere by complete and utter storm.
Their sound is a mix of Brazilian funk, a dash of heavy guitar chords that will never fail to get your bum moving, and multiple pinches of sex appeal that will have you sweating as soon as you push play. Their debut single “Drinkee” premiered on Interview Magazine, which not only excited the masses, but left everyone who listened wanting more and quickly.
We brought the duo to Gibson Studios in Hell’s Kitchen to practice their live set, and lucky for us, got to chat with them a bit about their production process, DJing together, and what they hope to have happen within the next year.
How long did it take you guys to write your EP?
Sophie: About five months. And a lot of that time was getting used to recording in a studio—we were also just trying to figure out what our sound was.
So a lot of the music that we made was just trying to figure out where our comfort zone was—we wrote about a dozen songs. I think we had some deep house, some acoustic singer/songwriter stuff. So like five months to make all of these then decide which of the songs represent where we are at the moment.
Tucker: We focused on finding the point of intersection of me and her influences, rather than just her or just my style. But the ones we ended up on as representing us as a unit are the ones in the EP.
How did you decide which single went out first?
Sophie: I do not think it is our best song. I think the reason we decided on it was because it grabbed peoples attention and they would be like, “What the hell is this?” So that’s more why we chose “Drinkee.”
But also, it’s the first song we ever did together. We had been working together a while before—Tucker was producing my stuff. It was actually senior week, and Tucker was working on a song and he brought me into it to help him and we decided that we wanted to start working together. So we did in our last bit at Brown.
And this was right after I met the poet Chacal, so I was so hyped, and I wanted to move to Brazil to work with him. Then “Drinkee” happened and we decided to go to New York.
Tucker: And Ben from The Knocks invited us to move to NYC and work out of their studio.
Sophie: It was a very magical moment and I think it had to be the single because it really was the genesis moment.
Tucker: it makes sense for a summer, pool party vibe—and a lot of people thought we shouldn’t put out a song that’s not English at first, given many of our other songs are in English…
When will you release the rest of the EP?
Tucker: This summer. Depending on what happens in the next week or so. I mean the next few weeks will be a tell-all of what happens this summer, and what’s released.
We’re eager to get the next round of stuff out, so we want this stuff [from this EP] out ASAP. We’ve been sitting on it for a long time.
You guys had your debut DJ show the other night at Output for the Kitsune party, how did it turn out overall and what was the vibe like?
Tucker: It was ‘v’ popping.
Sophie: Yeah, we DJ well together, but I’m really excited to do a live show. I think doing a DJ show showed me how excited I am to do a live show because we were limited, and I would prefer to have more space to jump around and go wild in.
How are you going to divide whether you DJ or play live?
Tucker: I think it’s gong to be an interesting balance, we don’t know how much were going to do one or the other. We’re experimenting with adding a third person for the live show.
So I guess we don’t know the answer yet.
What do you guys hope the next year looks like for Sofi Tukker?
Tucker: Man, I’m only thinking about tomorrow. But that’s a great question, I hope the momentum continues to build, and I think it’s hard to say where we’ll be in a year.
You wanna say you’ll be somewhere, but everything takes so long. Definitely would love to start traveling the world sooner than later.
Sophie: I would love to have this project be sustainable and be able to support ourselves doing it, that’s the big thing. If I could just continue to wake up and make music and have Sofi Tukker be the recipient of my creative expressive needs, then that would be great.
Tucker: I hope our music is able to get to a lot of ears. We are open to how the world receives it.
