PC Music’s A.G. Cook has penned a moving eulogy to his late friend and collaborator, SOPHIE, who passed away following a tragic accident in Athens earlier this year.
“I’m still processing Sophie’s life… her nature, her work, her beauty,” Cook wrote in a lengthy post on his website. “She was laser-focused and exceptionally intelligent, but also sensitive and perceptive. It didn’t matter whether we were talking about people or relationships or materials or music—she approached every topic with the love, care and intensity of someone who has truly lived.”
The eulogy delved into the pair’s creative relationship and friendship, dating back to 2012, that blossomed after Cook reached out to SOPHIE upon finding her music on Soundcloud.
“I remember the Soundcloud page well,” he wrote. “SOPHIE in all caps alongside a bio that just said ‘EASYJET GENERATION’ alongside a bulbous, bright pink profile picture (…) two 30 second tracks — ‘BIPP (DEMO)’ and ‘OOH (DEMO)’ — that I listened to on repeat.”
“I couldn’t believe that there was someone out there, let alone someone in London, with such a strong vision and almost no regard for the walls between pop and experimental art.”
Cook went on to unravel how their creative partnership took them around the world, sharing stories from London, Los Angeles and Berlin. “She loved to be on the move, ideally in a car with no particular destination,” he wrote.
The letter touched on their creative relationship with fellow musicians, and those that would orbit the PC sphere. “Sophie had her way with people,” he wrote. “She could be critical, demanding, laid-back and mischievous all at the same time, an approach that turned everyone into a potential collaborator.”
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“I know she made an enormous impression on the variety of people who (one way or another) became part of PC Music, and she would often raise people up, imploring them to pursue their individuality,” he continued.
Cook wrote about their shared relationship with Charli XCX, “for me, Charli was the first artist whose voice and presence could actually sit over a full-blown SOPHIE instrumental intact,” he says. Charli XCX’s own tribute to SOPHIE, posted days after her death, further illuminates their magic friendship.
There’s a particularly touching moment in the piece where Cook delves into how he’ll consider SOPHIE’s legacy, “Sophie was and always will be a wedding DJ. There were cute photos of her DJing weddings as a pre-teen, and one of the most joyous DJ sets we did together was for her sister’s wedding,” he wrote.
“It’s funny to think of us striking a balance between our own tracks and the ethereal ‘mainstream’ selections that are considered acceptable at weddings, but Sophie loved to win over crowds, to make people dance, and she had a vast knowledge of music from different eras which she could deftly weave into her own world.
“Amongst her USBs were some backup folders simply labelled 70s, 80s, 90s that I remember falling back on for various nights and afterparties when things needed to get a little matrimonious.”
“I’m still processing Sophie’s death,” Cook wrote at the close of his eulogy. “This was the first paragraph that I started to write in what became a long eulogy—but I think I’m closer now.”
