#albumanalysis

The philosophy of ‘Oil Of Every Pearl’s Un-insides’.

Look at the cover of SOPHIE’s debut Album and you will see written on her plastic covered arm, “Nothingness”. This image features the Artist perched in an ethereal landscape of liquid and clouds, facing out with as blank a face as possible. With this in mind consider the lyrics of the jarringly disconnected bridge of Track 3, Faceshopping:

So you must be the one That I've seen in my dreams Come on, touch me Set my spirit free Oh, test me Do you feel what I feel? Do you see what I see? Oh, reduce me to nothingness Yes, yes  

These lyrics are partly a knowing cliche thats serves to highlight the arbitrary quality of the bridge, but I believe there’s two very significant lines here: “set my spirit free” and “reduce me to nothingness”. All over this Album we find freedom in nothingness; liberation from constraint, from boundaries. The most upfront example of this is ‘Immaterial’ a poppy celebration that ponders topics of Transhumanism ( the theory and speculation of what a future where A.I and human consciousness interact would be and how that would effect our notions of identity). After the seemingly-formless genesis of previous track ‘Pretending’ we have this absolute revelry. it is curious that there can be liberation in nothingness; however this is not a new idea nor is it “nothingness” exactly.

The use of “spirit” is particularly telling. I’ve described this nothingness in relation to transcendence. Transcendence is, put crudely, the experience of an interaction with or view into a reality outside of our usual ability to comprehend (or perhaps ever comprehend); it is talked of as being immensely powerful and great value. The word ‘transcendental’ has religious origins. People sometimes have what they may call religious experiences – described, in religious terms as ‘encounters with the Holy Spirit’. This is an interesting description, metaphorically speaking as, out of the trinity (the Son, the Father and the Holy Spirit / Ghost), it’s the Holy Spirit that a person feels that they encounter in these experiences. The word ’Spirit’ is telling because a spirit is by definition, something that “transcends” it’s limitation and embodiment e.g. when a person dies we may say that “their spirit lives on”; a spirit is abstract and in the ether. The spirt is the part of someone that is not bound to their body, it’s their soul, some might say their essence. Does SOPHIE think people have an essence? i’m not sure.

The transcendental can be regarded as a kind of nothing and is in many cultures and schools of thought; It is discussed as simultaneously a place of no-things and the source of all things. It is not clear when people talk of there being a “nothing” at the core of things if they don’t believe in truth or if they adhere to the idea that truth is elusive. So again, this “nothingness” is not necessarily “nothingness exactly”, it may be thought of as just existing beyond the body, beyond the material, so it’s not clear exactly in what way it exists, if it exists, which is why “Immaterial” is posed as a question, not a statement.. ‘Oil Of Every Pearls Un-Insides’ is not a work of ideology, it’s a work of exploration.

There is a surface of ideology obviously. It is easy and probably reasonable to associate SOPHIE with a kind of contemporary Post-Modernism, it is ’PC’ music after all…(thats a joke by the way) Yet SOPHIE’s consciously Po-Mo sprinklings cover a more fundamental axiom: Go into the unknown and prosper (possibly). 

We can liken SOPHIE’s production style to a kind of musical deconstruction where sounds clash, genres collide and sometimes feel like they are literally being destroyed. The musical arrangements and sound design trigger the senses as well as defy expectations, the Album tracks this process as a journey into chaos.   To some extend this is the oldest story; it’s the hero myth, it’s the ancient role of the artist to extend the domain of the known into the unknown. SOPHIE’s musical approach may be “deconstructive” but in the sense that it is seeking something new, something potent, going back into the ocean of potential and forming something from it. The thing here though is the emphasis on “possibly” prospering, for this pursuit is littered with anxiety and conflict (or perhaps it’s “glittered” with it.) I admit though, that some of this may be a consequence of the album format itself, but every artist’s work is shaped by the medium to some extent.

Consciously or unconsciously, the truth that SOPHIE seeks in this album is an evasive kind; perhaps truth is always evasive. This truth (for want of a better word) is the kind that evades categorisation and slips from grasp. Chaos, the unknown, the transcendental are all over this album. The “oil” in the title, the water in ‘Is It Cold In The Water?’ the liquid on the cover (is this the oil/or the water, or both?) - I would consider these the central themes of the album. Obviously it is the oil of every persons “un-insides”. The title is an obviously jarring contradiction; that a person has no real inside and yet they have an oil, an essence. The buddhist notion of “The Self” comes to mind, it is a concept that describes the truest part of oneself while representing a state of consciousness that requires recognition of the illusion of self in the sense we might think of; “The Self” is not the Ego, its almost the opposite. While some reviewers have referred to this Album as an embrace of Identity (on a personal level it may be), in many ways its a rejection of it or at least a struggle through it. And this struggle is key to why this contradiction works; it is an honest exploration, it’s all “pretending” but we can “synthesise the real” and yet maybe we can’t because the sound design tells us this is a dangerous and terrifying endeavour. Again and again the superficial is embraced and then falls away, either to the beautiful or to the uncomfortable. Freedom is sought in the undoing of limitation and the knowledge of it’s falseness. The problem is we are very much a product of our limitations: imagine life without gravity, imagine paying attention to something without not paying attention to something else or finding a way through life without not doing something else; SOPHIE is well aware of this. SOPHIE’s music can be thought of a kind of interplay of celebration and anxiety (which is essentially what music is anyway). The anxious quality is partly a result of the visceral nature of her music but it is also very much to do with the dive into this notion of “nothingness”. Anxiety, as slightly separate from fear, is associated with nothingness or the absence of a specific problem, in other words anxiety is the state in which the threat is everything. Fear requires specific threat, anxiety is the presence of threat without the comfort of specifics; you’re direction is non existent and you’re problem undifferentiated. It’s a deeply uncomfortable state.