The Swiss artist Sophie Hunger has an impressive range of talents. As well as being extremely multi-lingual (she sings in German, French and English across her back catalogue), her blend of pop, jazz and folk has won her huge numbers of international fans, a slot at Glastonbury festival, and she’s even duet-ted with Eric Cantona. Now she’s back with a new record, Molecules, and to promo it she’s heading out on tour. We put a few questions to her ahead of her Stockholm show.
Hi Sophie! Introduce us to your new album Molecules. It feels like this record has gone in a more full-on electro-pop path than your previous work. Would you agree with that, and if so what prompted you to move on that direction?
I moved to Berlin 4 years ago, and I was surprised to see there was not a big band scene, but there was a big club scene. Techno and electronic music in general are the sound of the city. I started to go out a lot and was inspired by it, I started buying synths and discovered Krautrock. I worked more and more on the computer and less and less in a traditional way “at the piano”.
You write in English, French and German, how do you decide which language a song is eventually going to end up in? Does it depend on when the initial melody starts?
It’s often just a single word that I like or a sentence that sticks to my mind, then from there I build the lyrics.
She Makes President has a title that instantly stands out, can you tell us a little more about that song?
I heard it in a radio show about the elections in America. I liked the syntax of the phrase. I wanted to write a lovesong, an anthem a glorification of and to the woman of now.
Finally, what can we expect from the show in Stockholm?
We will play in a quartet, everyone has to play many things at the same time. It will be a mix of electronic and acoustic sounds, and everyone is singing too. It’s hard work for us but should sound like a flowing on your back through a stream.
Sophie Hunger’s new album Molecules is out now on Caroline, and she plays Bar Brooklyn tonight (Nov 6).
