SOPHIA BLENDA | HEAST!

On her first solo album, “Die Neue Heiterkeit” (2022), the Viennese artist took a stand against the paralyzing background noise of social constraints with melancholy chamber pop set to piano and poetic lyrics. Sophia Blenda’s music is a quiet but effective protest. Her second album will be released in April 2025. This is an indictment and a feminist wake-up call. Sophia Blenda’s new album asks how many more individual cases are needed for people to realize that there are no individual cases. The album title speaks volumes. Because what else is the sum of the many individual stories but a violent system that ignores, discriminates against and degrades FLINTA* and queer people? Nevertheless, those affected are often not even believed or, if they are, no importance is attached to them.

“I want to counter this with my album,” says Sophia Blenda. “I’ve been concerned for a long time that female and queer pain is trivialized in our society. I want to tell these stories without trivializing anything. Nothing is dealt with here in passing or in passing. The songs give the stories the importance they deserve.” Her struggle as a musician is against losing her own stories, thoughts and feelings in the storm of the present. And an alternative to isolation, loneliness and isolation, which is already implied in the title of the new album. The socio-critical and ominously urgent compositions are written alone at the piano at home in Vienna. From there, the intimately performed songs grow into something collective. In the spirit of: Together we are less alone.

“one of the strongest German-language pop statements” (Spiegel, Album of the Week)

“This is poetry, not lyrics (…) it also deserves a literary prize.” (Der Standard)

“Sloganless chamber pop” (Musikexpress)