Posthumous album set for release in September

A final, posthumous album by the experimental pop artist Sophie is to be released this year, her family have announced.

The singer’s family revealed the news on Monday, saying it was drawn from material she had almost completed at the time of her death three years ago.

The album was “lovingly finalised by those who hold her closest”, including Sophie’s brother and collaborator Ben Long, they added.

The musician died at the age of 34 in an accidental fall after climbing to watch the full moon in Athens, Greece.

Several months after her death, her brother Ben told Billboard magazine that the musician had “literally hundreds of tracks” in the vault, but that he wanted to “do right by Sophie” in releasing what she would have wanted.

“I don’t want to be like, ‘We’re going to put everything out,’ because sometimes Sophie didn’t want it to or it wasn’t finished,” he continued.

“But it was quite clear with a lot of songs, just from the fact that we had been working on them and mixing the album, that I know the direction a lot of things were supposed to be going.”

The family’s statement said that the new, self-titled record would be Sophie’s “final” release, and feature “her most cherished collaborators”.

Alongside the news, they also released the first single, Reason Why, with guest vocals from Kim Petras and BC Kingdom.

Born in Glasgow, Sophie Xeon was one of the most in-demand producers in pop – working with Madonna, Diplo, Vince Staples, Camila Cabello, Petras and Charli XCX.

She released her debut single Nothing More to Say in 2013, and found her audience with the challenging and avant-garde follow-ups Bipp and Lemonade.

Her stated goal was to disrupt the conventions of pop. “The language of electronic music shouldn’t still be referencing obsolete instruments like kick drum or clap. No one’s kicking or clapping,” she said in 2014.

“It makes more sense in my mind to discard those ideas of polyphony and traditional roles of instrumentation.”

In 2018, she released her debut album Oil Of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides, which received a Grammy nomination for best dance/electronic album.

As a producer and writer, her credits included the combative Madonna single Bitch, I’m Madonna and Charli XCX’s disruptive, career-defining Vroom Vroom.

Her influence has permeated pop since her death. In the past year alone, St Vincent, Caroline Polacheck, Charli XCX and AG Cook have released songs paying tribute to her impact on their careers.

Charli’s track, called So I, is the most nakedly confessional. “When I make songs, I remember things you’d suggest,” she sings. “Would you like this one?”

The chorus also interpolates Sophie’s It’s OK to Cry, the song in which she came out as transgender.

Announcing the new album, Sophie’s family said: “Sophie didn’t often speak publicly of her private life, preferring to put everything she wanted to articulate in her music.

“It feels only right to share with the world the music she hoped to release, in the belief that we can all connect with her in this, the form she loved most.

“Sophie gave all of herself to her music. It’s here that she can always be found.”