Baltimore-born but now splitting her time between Hamburg and Berlin, Sophia Kennedy thrives in the space between mischief and melody. Cutting her teeth in Hamburgâs electronic underground, sheâs spent years weaving 1960s pop sensibilities into her avant-garde productions, creating music that feels both familiar and wonderfully off-kilter.
Her latest single âRodeoâ is pure mischief - a ride of looping piano, shimmering synth bass and eerie, luminous choirs, jolted by a sudden Kate Bush-esque scream. A song that shouldnât make sense but somehow does, âRodeoâ thrives in its own eccentricity.
âThereâs a saying, âdonât call us, we call youâ - thatâs what âRodeoâ didâ, Kennedy says. âWe didn't call âRodeoâ, it called us. It wrote itself, immediate and direct. Weâve only ever played it live, with just piano and bass. Back in the studio, we gave it a groove and a psychedelic guitarâ.
ââRodeoâ is a journey into a dream-like state, perhaps a nightmarish oneâ, she continues. âIt looks into a future with a lot of question marks. âRodeoâ doesnât know where itâs headed, but Iâm pretty sure it knows where it took offâ.
Her new album âSqueeze Meâ is out this May via City Slang.
đ§ Listen to âRodeoâ below