GIG: SOPHIE KOH
PREVIEW BY JASMINE MCLENNAN
Sophie Koh is armed with a brand new album with a different style and is ready to bedazzle audiences in Australia and overseas.
After almost 3 years since the release of her first album, All The Pretty Boys, Sophie believed she had ‘a fresh approach and new inspiration’ and was ready to tackle making another album.
Her latest, All Shook Up is in stark contrast to the previous. Sophie says this is mostly because she has simply grown up. ‘I’ve gotten older so of course the music is going to be different. I don’t feel like I have to please anyone in this album.’
In her first album Sophie and Richard Pleasance, her friend and producer at the time, played almost every instrument themselves. ‘I grew up playing piano and always tried different instruments,’ says Sophie, ‘but I’d never played the Viola before, I wouldn’t say I was a virtuoso!’
Raised in Singapore and New Zealand, and with Malaysian parents, she spent a lot of her childhood moving around. ‘I always felt like the new kid.’ Sophie said, ‘at the time it was quite traumatic,’ she said, ‘but now I am grateful. I got to know different cultures and I was exposed to different things that other people might find weird.’
‘Music was my way to survive, my way of making friends,’ says Sophie, ‘Some people would join the basketball team to fit in, I would go and join the Orchestra.’
All Shook Up is officially released on May 8. ‘I hope to be able to travel overseas with it, but first just tour around Australia, get some good support gigs like last time,’ says Sophie (who has supported acts such as Eels, The Go-Betweens, Betchadupa, Pete Murray, Alex Lloyd, Paul Dempsey, Ember Swift, Mick Thomas and Paul Kelly in the past).
With talent and an attitude like Sophie’s it’s hard to imagine this won’t happen. She deserves everything All Shook Up brings her. Get down to see her perform at her official single launch of Objects in This Mirror this Friday at the Hopetoun.
Sophie Koh
May 2
Hopetoun Hotel
$10
93615257 or www.myspace.com/hopetounhotel
