COBRAH

Born in Gothenburg in 1996, Clara Blom Christiensen grew up in the same city that produced ABBA’s Björn Ulvaeus and the death-metal band In Flames. During adolescence she was drawn to the latter scene, stashing black stage clothes in her school bag so she could head straight to clubs once classes ended. After training in musical theater and flute, she spent her days teaching elementary school while quietly refining the sound that would become COBRAH, an occupation she abandoned only after her recording career had already begun.

Describing her work as “BDSM pop” and “gay workout music,” the Swedish artist channels an ongoing lineage of LGBTQ+ expression through constant reinvention, a trait already audible on her 2021 self-titled EP and on the 2023 full-length debut SUCCUBUS. Her first single, the self-released “IDFKA,” surfaced in 2018 and stood out for its skeletal beats plus a video that earned a Swedish Grammy nomination. The following year she issued the EP ICON, whose sound and imagery drew directly from BDSM attire and ballroom traditions.

International attention arrived after a Stockholm concert where Charli XCX invited her onstage alongside a group of drag queens. COBRAH dropped the single “Debut” in 2020 during the same week COVID-19 lockdowns reached the United States, then kept a low profile until the 2021 self-titled EP arrived with the hypnotic cuts “Good Puss” and “Gooey Fluid Girls.” Early in 2022 she was listed among 100 notable emerging artists; later that year a remix of “Good Puss” added a verse from CupcakKe. Her first album under a new Atlantic Records deal, SUCCUBUS, appeared at the end of 2023.