SOFI TUKKER are making dance music's catchiest songs

Header photo by Shervin Lainez.

It's obvious when you're listening to a SOFI TUKKER song. While their sound spans sub-genres and textures, the New York dance-duo are almost unmatched at crafting house-pop slices of brilliance that ooze with their musical personality and these unique, SOFI TUKKER sensibilities – whether it be Sophie Hawley-Weld's language mish-mash of Portuguese and English on singles including Drinkee and their latest, the ZHU-featuring Mi Rumba, or the combination of catchy vocal hooks, playful melodies and clattering percussion kicks on Fuck They and Baby I'm A Queen. A SOFI TUKKER song is instantly recognisable – they bring fun, danceable moments while also carrying this polished refinement, something that's tough to juggle especially when it comes to electronic music.

As a result, SOFI TUKKER have become one of house music's most adored and acclaimed names. Their debut single Drinkee, which paired a warped guitar melody, thick bass and layered, left-of-centre percussion to create a song almost unavoidable through 2016, found itself chart on both the Hottest 100 and the ARIA Charts, signalling a commercial/alternative crossover appeal that is incredibly hard to achieve for a slightly left-field electronic artist in the same vein of SOFI TUKKER. It was nominated for Best Dance Recording at the Grammy Awards that year, and is one of the few tracks associated with Latin America's increasing influence in popular western culture, especially in dance - with Portuguese lyrics inspired by the poem 'Relógio' by Brazilian poet Chacal. Johnny found itself on the cult-favourite and influential FIFA 17 soundtrack, something Best Friend - which features NERVO, The Knocks and Alisa Ueno - managed to achieve the year after, making them one of the only acts to appear on the soundtrack two years in a row. Best Friend also launched the iPhone X, while Batshit launched the iPhone 8 RED. Oh, and their debut album was nominated for a Grammy this year.

Seemingly, SOFI TUKKER's music holds a cross-market appeal. The thick bass line of the ZHU-featuring Mi Rumba and the swelling synth of Fuck They appeal to the sweaty clubs at 3 AM just as much as they appeal to moments marked with daylight. They're catchy and earworming - whether it be lyrically or melodically - but hold this unique, warped sound that you can't quite find anywhere else, meaning that there's a slight edge to them that appeals for people looking for something more experimental and 'weird'. 

Live, this experimentalism is only fleshed out more. Driven to offer something different to your standard electronic live experience, the duo created a 'pad tree' - a palm tree-appearing structure coated in drum and sample pads that they play on. "We wanted to create something different instead of just playing drum pads. Something visual. Something that helps to create the aesthetic of our jungle stage," they told Riverbeats. "We like that it’s tall and we can use our height to play it. We end up getting to act out the music even more than if we were hunched over. For people who don’t know what it is, it’s a large cylinder sculpture with books all around it. And inside the books are contact microphones. So the whole thing acts like a midi drum pad."

There's more new music on the way, but in the meantime, dive into SOFI TUKKER's debut album Treehouse below, and catch them touring the country this May, proudly presented by Pilerats. Full details and tickets HERE.

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