【搬运译】Pitchfork评SOPHIE 2018年专辑《OIL OF EVERY PEARL’s UN-INSIDES》

搬运自：网易云音乐专栏【Music Online Zine Courier】（在原文基础上添加了英语原文与排版调整）

翻译：Beans_Beans

The experimental music of SOPHIE relaxes into new forms on her debut album. It is sprawling and beautiful, while still keeping the disorienting, latex-pop feel of her fascinating production technique.

SOPHIE在她的首张专辑中为她的实验音乐尝试了全新的呈现方式。它宏伟而精美，迷人的制作技巧使人沉迷，保留了这份迷惑性的同时独特的乳胶质感也诱人至深。

Since 2013, SOPHIE has carved out aninstantly identifiable musical vernacular based on synthesized bubble sounds,brash treble, deep bass, and distended, anonymous vocals. Listening to early singles like "Lemonade" or "Vyzee" could be a disorienting (and thrilling)experience, because SOPHIE's music sounded like a latex-coated version of radio pop: It followed many of the same rules that governed the mainstream, but all the textures were too taut, too perfect, too unreal. But in the self-directedmusic video for "It's Okay to Cry," SOPHIE appeared in front of the lens of acamera and introduced an element of vulnerability to her work. Her own voiceappeared on that track, and though still digitally altered, it sounded tentative and cracked through with subtle flaws. Finally, one of the most intriguing new presences in experimental pop had fully materialized.

自2013年以来，SOPHIE凭借她在合成的气泡音、粗犷的高音、深沉的低音和扭曲的匿名人声的大胆发挥，刻画出了一个极具识别度的音乐“方言”。听早期的单曲，如“Lemonade”或 “Vyzee”，可能是一种令人迷失其中（也令人激动不已）的奇妙体验，因为SOPHIE的音乐听起来像有着乳胶质地衣壳的电台流行音乐：它遵循了许多与主流音乐相同的规则，但所有这些在她的笔下都变得紧绷、完美、不真实。在自导自演的“It's Okay to Cry”的MV中，SOPHIE出现在摄像机镜头前，为她的作品引入了一个全新的元素——“脆弱”。这首曲子完全使用了她自己的声音，虽然是经过数字处理的，但它听起来仍是有试水性的，也带有些许细微的瑕疵。最终为我们打造出实验性流行音乐中最吸引人的全新存在之一。

SOPHIE's debut album, OIL OF EVERY PEARL's UN-INSIDES, adapts many of the technical strategies heard on her previous work to looser, more sprawling compositions. Instead of chaining together compact singles as on 2015's PRODUCT, the album builds and releases narrative ten/tions. Beat-heavy romps like "Ponyboy" and "Faceshopping" nestle together at the top of the tracklist after "It's Okay to Cry," giving way to celestial swells of synthesizer and voice. Where SOPHIE's early singles exhibited a keen feel foreconomy and a killer sense of humor, OIL makes a bid for transcendent beauty.

SOPHIE的首张专辑《OIL OFEVERY PEARL'S UN-INSIDES》将她之前作品中听得到的许多技术策略改编为更宽松、更宏伟的形式。这张专辑没有像2015年的《PRODUCT》那样紧凑地把每一首单曲捆绑在一起，而是重构并完全释放了她的叙事张力。像“Ponyboy”和“Faceshopping”这样有着节奏感厚重的玩闹曲目，仅仅依偎在列表的开头，在“It's Okay to Cry”之后，便让位于合成器音效和宛如天籁般的人声、占满整个声学空间。SOPHIE的早期单曲表现出敏锐的理性和致命的幽默感，而《OIL》则在追求超然世外的美。

One of the album's most astonishing tracks,"Is It Cold in the Water?" brings SOPHIE's music to a newly searching place."I'm freezing/I'm burning/I've left my home," a voice sings in breathy soprano. Cycling synthesizer chords build in volume throughout the verse and then drop away by the end of the first chorus. The voice sings the song's title, stretching out the word "cold" across a series of notes, as though it belonged to someone standing at the edge of the ocean, wondering if they should jump. It's the clearest image to arise from a SOPHIE song to date, and it sets the rest of the album in motion.

这张专辑中最令人惊叹的歌曲之一是“Is It Cold in the Water?”，把SOPHIE的音乐带到又一个新的探索领域。“I'm freezing/I'm burning/I've left my home,”一个带着喘息的女高音如此唱着。循环的合成器和弦在整个主歌段中逐增音量，随即在第一个副歌段结束时渐渐减弱。这个声音唱着歌曲的名字，把“cold”一词扩展至一系列的音符上，就像站在海边崖岸上的一人口中的呢喃，犹豫自己是否应该纵身一跳。这是迄今为止SOPHIE歌曲中刻画得最为清晰的画面，也为专辑的其他部分的情感做了铺垫。

The rotating chords continue into "Infatuation," a low-key number about admiring someone from afar, only now it's a processed human voice singing the notes instead of a synthesizer. Then the song structures to which SOPHIE had been beholden for most of her career dissolve. The abrasive, chaotic interlude "Not Okay" opens up into "Pretending," a six-minute ambient murk entirely unlike anything SOPHIE has puther name to before. Its formlessness, and the inclusion of stray, garbled voices towards the end suggests a primordial becoming, a vacancy from which structures can emerge. Out of the fog comes the refrain of the next song, gleefully repeated over handclaps that land on every beat: "Immaterial girls!/Immaterial boys!"

回旋的和弦来到“Infatuation”， 这首低调的歌曲再现了对远方某人的爱慕之情，只是在这里用一个经过处理的人声演绎，而不仅仅是合成器。随即，SOPHIE在她职业生涯的大部分时间里一直遵循的歌曲结构法则在此击破。粗糙、混乱的插曲“NotOkay”为“Pretending”拉开了序幕，这是一首长达6分钟的环境杂音，完全不同于SOHPIE以前冠以她名字的任一作品。它的无定形，以及在接近尾声时加入的杂乱无章的声音，都在暗示着一种原初的形成，一种结构所允许的缺陷。从迷雾中脱离出来，迎接我们的是下首歌开篇在每一个节拍上欢快地重复着的。

The transition from amorphous noise togiddy rallying cry ranks among OIL's most satisfying moments. Withself-affirming lyrics ("I can be anything I want") sung through elasticpitch-shifting software, "Immaterial" sits at the album's thematic core. It'sthe molecules of a Madonna song filtered through a new context, speaking to howdesire informs selfhood, how wanting to be something—a gender other than theone you were assigned at birth, say—is a big step in the process of becomingit. It may be the only step. "Immaterial" indulges desire the way the smartest pop songs can, by both inviting and challenging it. Its voices dance along irresistible melodies, and then they get distorted into impossible ones,twisted beyond their "natural" ranges into new, disarming shapes.

从无定形的噪音到使人目眩的集结号角的过渡是《OIL》最令人心满意足的时刻之一。通过弹性的音高转换软件唱出的自我认同歌词（“I can be anything I want”）可以看出，“Immaterial”是专辑主题的核心所在。它像是构成麦当娜歌曲的分子之一，经过一个全新背景的过滤，为我们讲述了欲望是如何影响自我的，如何促使我们想要成为另一种存在的——比如说，成为与你出生时被分配的性别截然不同的另者——这是性别认同过程中的一个重要步骤，也可能是唯一的一步。“Immaterial”以最机智的方式在流行歌曲中放纵了欲望，接纳它的同时也在克制。它的声音随着难以抗拒的旋律起舞，然后又被扭曲成不可思议的音律，超脱出它们所在的“自然”范围之外，化身成新全新的、迷人的模样。

"Immaterial," alongside OIL's storming, nine-minute conclusion "Whole New World:Pretend World," speaks to a conception of gender, being, and selfhood that feels increasingly resonant. By complicating the naturalness of the human voice and corrupting established pop structures, SOPHIE also complicates the supposed naturalness of gender, which has always been inextricable from music. Her work is a sphere where will andimpulse take priority over fate and legacy. Nothing is preordained; everythingis always in flux. When, on "Whole New World," the distorted, feminized voices that have become her trademark shout out the song's title one syllable at a time—"whole! new! world!"—it sounds almost like a manifesto, a politicaldemand. It sounds like the kind of phrase you'd shout in a crowd while clamoring for the freedom to be whatever it is you already are.

“Immaterial”，与《OIL》暴风雨般的九分钟尾声“Whole New World:Pretend World,”一起，讲述了一个愈能引发共鸣的性别、存在和自我的概念。通过使人声的自然性复杂化和破坏既定的流行音乐结构，SOPHIE也同样展现了性别的所谓自然性的复杂化，而这也一直是与音乐密不可分的。她的作品永远存在于一个意志和冲动凌驾于命运和后果之上的领域。没有什么是预设的——一切总远处在变化之中。当在“Whole New World,”中，她标志性的扭曲的女性化声音一次一个音节地喊出歌曲的标题——”whole! new! world!”——它听起来几乎像是一个宣言，一个政治要领；这听起来就像你会在人群中高喊出的那种口号，为你拥有能够成为任何你想要的模样的自由而欢呼。