Like that little seed that finds itself buried, fragile and vulnerable, blindly obsessing as it grows to the surface, poking through the earth to find the light, so is the catharsis of heartbreak: we feel weak, timid but through the process, can turn aggressive and thorny. Montreal-based Sophia Bel’s debut LP Anxious Avoidant, released last month via BonSound, captures this human struggle.
We caught up with her to talk about her process and her single “All Fucking Weekend”.
Tell us a bit about your inspiration.
I wrote “All Fucking Weekend” when I was confused and eager to spend all my time with someone that I really liked. I was trying to go with the flow and be comfortable in the process of getting to know someone, but I had all this repressed angst. It can be such an overwhelming feeling, when you are completely infatuated and every time you say goodbye there’s this hole in your stomach, you want to know when you get to see them again.
From that place, how did the track evolve over time?
I wrote the song last winter with my acoustic guitar and a notebook, in my bed. The song started out as a soft, vulnerable and sentimental acoustic ballad, and to my surprise, it became a grungy stoner rock alternative anthem. I love how we break into a tempo change at the end and vamp into an aggressive hyper pop extravaganza, it’s the sort of spontaneous craziness that can only happen when the stars align just right. It reminds me of more modern alternative artists that push the boundaries of pop and rock in a subtle yet edgy way, such as Indigo de Souza.
How much of your inspiration comes from locations and collaborations?
It was a dream to record it at the end of the summer with my band. Christian Sean was playing guitars, bass and synths, Laurent St-Pierre was playing the drums, Miko was adding guitars, piano and his fresh hyper pop approach and I played some guitar and keys. The synergy of jamming, arranging and recording a song simultaneously in the same room really brings life and magic to it. Marco Petrella was the engineer capturing all the magic and Tim Buron was producing it with me, from the time we recorded it in the studio up until we sent the mix to Richard Addison for the mastering.
We captured this pop-punk number in a legendary studio called B-12 in Valcourt. It’s a mansion in the country, roughly an hour drive from Montreal. It has this mythical 70s architecture and there are all these little staircases and secret passages, I got lost in there a few times.
Sophia Bel’s new album Anxious Avoidant is out now on Bonsound. You can find her on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook.
