Sophia Kennedy

Sophia Kennedy crafts songs that evoke the more eccentric, elaborately arranged indie pop associated with tUnE-yArDs and Dirty Projectors, infusing them with a theatrical sensibility that links Tin Pan Alley traditions, off-Broadway musical theater, and observational singing/songwriting across shifting textures incorporating orchestral instruments alongside electronics. Her debut full-length, Sophia Kennedy, appeared in 2017. She supplied songwriting and vocals for DJ Koze’s Knock Knock, issued in 2018, before unveiling her follow-up LP, Monsters, in 2021.

Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Kennedy relocated to Germany for film studies and subsequently pursued any available opportunities in the performing arts, among them production roles in theater and film. Her earliest single, “Angel Lagoon” from 2013, was cut with composer and multi-instrumentalist Carsten Meyer, who records as Erobique. Over the ensuing years she balanced theater composition with the development of her own material and the refinement of her approach.

Pampa Records, the Hamburg-based imprint run by DJ Koze, issued her self-titled debut in April 2017; the record introduced both her quirky, animated pop and a lyric voice equally attentive to imagery, passing observations, wordplay, and introspection. Early 2018 brought the Being Special EP, again via Pampa. That same year she featured on two tracks from DJ Koze’s Knock Knock. After teaming with Stella Sommer (Die Heiterkeit) and Helena Raika in the duo Shari Vari during 2019, Kennedy finished her second solo album, Monsters, which City Slang released in May 2021.