Soko I Thought I Was An Alien

“When people ask me what kind of music I do,” says Soko, “I usually tell them - Punk secrets". Intimate, lo-fi, crazy, sexy, funny, tear-stained, heartbreaking, often all at once, the explosive young Frenchwoman’s songs have already touched people around the world, earning her a massive global following. At one mega-gig in Australia, she had 15,000 people singing along with her. Since her teens, Soko has been on a rollercoaster journey. From a stockpile of over 100 songs, she has now finally whittled down to a selection of 14, her debut album. Aptly entitled ‘I Thought I Was An Alien’, it’s full of love and loss and worry - the kind of fundamental, life-dictating human feelings, which are so far beyond rational explanation, they really ought to be kept under lock and key, along with that strange apparition from Roswell. Like one of her absolute heroes, Daniel Johnston, however, Soko has the rare ability to sing openly about those feelings, in a way which is utterly compelling, sometimes devastating, but also, completely uplifting. “Most of what I do is like crying on my guitar,” she says. “Why it took me so long to make my album?” she ponders. “It’s because I’m a control freak. I wanted to feel totally independent in my music. I wouldn’t've been able to release anything before I was sure I could produce myself, and I can play every single instrument, except strings and horns, and control every part that’s on the record, and know that I’ve chosen everything myself, or I’ve played it myself, or I made the arrangement for it.” Like innumerable bedsit troubadours of her generation, Soko started out with just her voice, her acoustic guitar, and GarageBand. After moving to Paris, her early demoes were picked up by radio stations in Denmark, Belgium and Australia, making her too much of a new pop thing, without her own consent. In 2007, her music was used in a Stella McCartney show in Paris. Soko played gigs with Daniel Johnston, MIA, Babyhambles, Adam Green, Jeffrey Lew