Sofie Winterson is an acclaimed musical artist, currently living in Los Angeles. Inspired by a mix of shoegaze, dream pop and folk, her music has been described as ‘magnetic’ (Nowness, 2015), ‘soulful’ and ‘intimate’ (Billboard, 2018). She has toured parts of Asia, Europe, and North America, including performances at SXSW. Sofie has also worked with some of the world’s most-exciting musicians and producers, including Fatima Yamaha, San Holo, Golden Vessel, and Benny Sings.
What, exactly, is the essence of a song? It’s the kind of search you can get yourself lost in, ceasing control and giving in to the whims of the track itself, in its most simplest form. For Sofie Winterson, that search proved crucial to her new album, ‘Southern Skies’. Having initially worked with Benny Sings on an EP pre-pandemic, the pair were able to reunite as the world came back to life and put their heads together once more. This time around, an EP wouldn’t be enough. They set their sights on an album.
“We both work with a lot of people, and it’s always like you never know how the energy between two people will be,” reflects Sofie. “For us both, it was really refreshing because it was so natural. There was a lightness to it."
It was an act of stripping-back. Whilst Sofie’s previous work is often layered, brimming with reverb and various instruments, on ‘Southern Skies’ she leans into the moments of accidental magic – including original vocals takes, writing lyrics right there in the room. It marked a new way of working for Sofie. She focused extensively on how she could capture her thoughts and feelings in the most succinct way possible. In part, that was due to the consistent reading habits that helped her through the last few years and played a large part in the narrative of ‘Southern Skies’.
“I found some thoughts and stories that helped me to get out of the smallness of the world we were living in – to make it bigger and to step outside my own perspective,”
“I really see it as a puzzle, to finish a song.”
On ‘Southern Skies’, Sofie Winterson seems to have perfectly positioned that last puzzle piece in place. On her quest to discover the essence of a song, she finds a wealth of creative inspiration in keeping things minimal and letting her words and her voice do the talking. Pulling inspiration from both Adrienne Lenker and Rachel Cusk’s ‘Transit’ in tandem, the essence of the song seems to lie in Sofie Winterson’s never-failing ability to tell a story with grace, immense consideration and the freedom to be projected upon and moulded as her listener’s see fit.