Interview with Sophia Brous
Sophia Brous
Sophia came across as a very knowledgeable and driven artist, which made for a good conversation.
DARRAGH MURRAY talks to cheerful chanteuse Sophia BROUS about her upcoming east coast tour, the release of her debut EP and the influential power of modern song.
Sophia Brous is another one of those interesting, engaging and congenial people that are difficult to dislike and easy to envy. A trained jazz performer, having studied at the prestigious New England Conservatory in Boston, Brous has also been the program director of the Melbourne Jazz Festival since 2009, a role she’s fitted in and around performing and writing her own music. And this is all before she’s turned 25. Still, Brous has yet to tour extensively along the east coast, something she’s determined to rectify in the coming weeks, including dropping by for the BigSound showcases.
“It’s the first time we’ve played in Brisbane and only the second time we’ve played in Sydney, so we’re really only just starting [out] in that sense.” Brous explains, “I actually went to BigSound a few years back because Van Dyke Parks was there. I literally went up there just to see him. It blew my mind, so it’s really good to come back and play there.”
Brous is on the precipice of releasing her self-titled debut EP, a record that is a melting pot of ‘60s pop sounds and also manages to incorporate influences from jazz, soul and even film; aspects, Brous believes, that come organically.
“I think there is something very special these days about being able to listen to so much music because it’s all so freely available. That allows an unselfconscious immersion,” Brous says. “I just love music, and I really try not to think about style too much, but to think about sounds. It was really about trying to listening to the song at its core and letting that build itself … letting all those parts build themselves around the centre of the song.”
It’s obvious that Brous is passionate about music and perpetually curious about arrangements and the craft of songwriting, something that shines through in her work.
“There are definitely things that influenced me, but they probably just spoke to me for reasons. There are different reasons that the songs of Lee Hazelwood or Mina or Scott Walker speak to me, probably because there was a beautiful sense of scope and richness in the arrangement, but there was always just space that was left for actually expressing something. In everything I like, whether it’s music or film, it’s those kind of moments that I love. I really wanted to create these moments in my own music.”
And it seems that for Brous, it is this critical awareness of music’s power to imprint itself upon her own musical sensibilities that has been a decisive factor in her development as an artist.
“I think we’re always a combination of everything we’ve listened too. There is different types of music in the world today that feels like a self-conscious awareness of being original and I sort of feel sometimes its a problematic term – everything’s a continuum.”
Not knowing much about jazz beyond Miles Davis, Sophia recommended I listen to few artists including Charles Mingus, artists I’ve now checked and can say I enjoyed.
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