Sophie Hunger: Breaking away, Coming home

»I didn’t study anything, I am sort of a field/forest/meadows hobby musician. And I am just a megalomaniac.« This is how the then 25-year old Sophie Hunger characterised herself  in early 2009 and this was both a coquettish understatement and a healthy dose of self-confidence at the same time – somehow, a  typical blend for this young Swiss artist who seemingly came out of nowhere for us Germans at that time. Her debut »Monday’s Ghost« had just been released, rocketing up to number 1 in the Swiss charts. From crowd favourite, she soon advanced to feature article darling in Germany as well, with clever, enigmatic and profound lyrics, an extraordinary tonal language between folk, chamber jazz and indie rock – and, yes, with an incomparable stage presence.

On the Swiss music scene, there is a time before and after Sophie Hunger. Of course, one could always find great dialect rock amongst the Swiss, such as that by Patent Ochsner and Züri West. The Helvetii delighted the world with successful dance acts from Yello to DJ Bobo, spawning remarkably many rap eminences more recently. And, as the forefather, often latently as the influencer of the most diverse genres, Bernese singer-songwriter Mani Matter was in the background. He died much too young in a car accident in 1972, but was powerfully eloquent, endearing and whimsical. Yet a profound, playful, cosmopolitan pop writer like Sophie Hunger, there had never been anyone like this at all in the Confoederatio Helvetica before.

Sophie Hunger, whose real name is Émilie Jeanne-Sophie Welti, is ideally placed to create a Reflektor at the Elbphilharmonie because she gets her artistic nutrients from the most diverse sources and parts of the world and because her own art is also correspondingly versatile. This is also due to her life: this daughter of a diplomat was born in Bern in 1983, grew up in London, Bonn and Zurich, was widely supplied with music from jazz through punk to folk music in her childhood home. She sang early on in the bands Superterz and Fisher. She released a home demo called »Sketches on Sea«, on which she even experimented a bit with hybrid forms between folk and audio drama. And took on a role in a feature film by her compatriot Micha Lewinsky, »Der Freund« [‘The Friend’].

Ein langes Wochenende mit der einzigartigen Singer-Songwriterin in allen Facetten – mit Band, Orchester, Film, Literatur und vielen Gästen

Her album »Monday’s Ghost« from 2008 is, however, regarded as what kick-started her really great career. The lyrics on this album are ambiguous and visually stunning: entire cities burn and stretches of land sink into the floodwaters, themes by the classical/romantic writer Johann Peter Hebel are combined with a quote from the famous Swiss »Guggisberglied« [probably the oldest known Swiss folksong], Hunger picks to pieces slogans by populist politicians and flips Bob Dylan rhetoric. This all happens in English, French and German, more rarely in Zurich dialect. »England gave me the language«, she declared at that time. »And only just so much that I can recklessly sidestep with it. I don’t speak English well enough to always be aware of the difficulty of the language such as I am in German. Singing German is much more difficult for me because I can imagine every interpretation. With respect to English, I retained a certain level of naivety that helps me. By contrast, I can get away with anything in Swiss German because I have the feeling that I own the language.«

Journalists do not always take pleasure in Hunger’s quick-wittedness and her sometimes unexpected but always accurate answers. Some are vexed because she does not succumb to small-talk rules at all. And even musically she remains unpredictable: similarly, as with her spoken languages, she has captured different musical idioms in the course of her now eight records.

On »1983« for instance, her second album released in 2010, an indie-pop slant came into focus. The title track is dedicated to her birth year, angry and slightly melancholy at the same time: »Komm, bitte sing mir ein Volkslied, auch wenn es das nicht mehr gibt« [Come, please sing me a folk song even if that doesn’t exist anymore], she writes in the chorus, thereby seeming to reflect the irretrievability of the ancients in the age of digital natives. In the dreamy ballad »Train Song«, she creates the image of a train in which we all sit together that we can no longer stop, although we know that we should do so urgently. This was coined for the financial crisis. You could equally transfer it to climate change or to religious fundamentalism. This is the strength in her verses: every now and then, they seem to dance in the political arena, but create poetic vagueness with her images, eluding a one-dimensional interpretation.

People enjoy listening to Sophie Hunger’s messages in the same way as they happily let her sounds linger. If she plays the »Train Song« live for example, there is often an incredibly long silence (at least for a pop concert) after the final open chord. This is the case in general during her shows. People can often feel a breath-taking, concentrated atmosphere whether in Paris’ Bataclan, Berlin’s Tempodrom or Basel’s Kaserne. Here, something emanates from her stage presence, which demands unconditional attention. This applies to quiet moments as well as to the unruly rock anthems of which there have been more since the album »Supermoon« (in 2015), as she also reaches for guitar noise herself at times.

She is journeying between the stunning nature of California and her new homes of Paris and Berlin on this key work of her career, creating the psychological image of an obsessive love with »Die ganze Welt« [The Whole World], a defeatist garage rock number with »Weltmeister« [World Champion] and, with »Universum« [Universe], a fantastic bar chat between the weary homo sapiens and – the universe itself.

She also reflects upon her relationship to her own roots in the song »Heicho« (Coming Home). The fact that she, this Swiss fugitive, wants to return to die is »a declaration of love! After all, I am really coming back home for the most important thing. This is not meant malevolently at all.« Describing her relationship to Switzerland as »fragmented« would be poetic licence. It is, however, very probably a little ambivalent: »You cannot evade the natural beauty and comfort of Switzerland«, she admits. »The fact that this is also a misconception, however, provokes a constant breaking away. The integrity as can be discovered in Switzerland is perhaps only possible due to her skilfully hiding her anguish.«

Breaking away – she keeps doing this. In Berlin, she extols the infinite possibilities of creating from nothing and also Paris is more than a temporary retreat. Her flirtation with the culture of this metropolitan city went so far that the Philharmonie de Paris commissioned her in 2015 to provide the musical accompaniment for an exhibition about David Bowie. Her love of the French chanson is in turn shown in different ways in several cover versions: with a version of »Le vent nous portera« [The wind will carry us] evolving into the blueprint, the original by Noir Désir pales in comparison; with the inscrutable song of separation »Avec le temps« [With Time] by Léo Ferré; with Romy Schneider’s »La chanson d’Hélène« [The song of Hélène] , which she warmed up with the gallant footballer Éric Cantona.

And since we are on the subject of sport: Hunger’s original comments on the German Bundesliga are legendary and not just armchair punditry. In the video to »LikeLikeLike«, she sharply dribbles through Paris’ city centre.

And once again, Sophie Hunger opens a new musical chapter: away from rock guitars, towards gentle analogue synthesisers and a playful, colourful eighties sound on her last solo works »Molecules« (2018) and »Halluzinationen« [Hallucinations] (2020). You often feel taken back to the era of Depeche Mode and The Human League here. It is as if Hunger had sifted out a gentle form of electronica for herself from her technoid nights in Berlin’s Berghain. A tone colour that was a proven, very personal method for her to absorb the pain of a separation. But also to talk about female self-empowerment (»She Makes President«).

Of all these locations, Switzerland is, however, probably closest to Sophie Hunger’s heart. In recent years, she has increasingly relocated her activities there: her wonderful cover of the Mani Matter song »Dene wos guet geit« [Those Who Are Fine] (2019) with the songwriter Bonaparte and her trio record »Ich liebe dich« [I love you] (2020) with compatriots Faber and Dino Brandão as an intimate, life-affirming response to the lockdown era speak in favour of her solidarity with the current Helvetian scene. She is actually living there again now as well, on Lake Geneva, »a heaven on earth, a kind of final destination«, she says. – Final destination? Home to die?

Certainly not! Because now, at just over 40, she is curating a Reflektor at Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie. The appropriate anchor for a global citizen who has come home; the open-minded, Hanseatic sophisticatedness panders to her. »In Hamburg, the sea calls to you, but not with gentleness, with a draught and danger instead«, she says. »It is a troubled body of water that tells stories of moving in and out, not of standing still. Hamburgers are in the habit of conversing with the world, they have to exchange ideas in order to progress. This inspires me!«

Once before, in 2021, Sophie Hunger was a guest at the Elbphilharmonie, with Faber, Dino Brandão and a string quartet. »The building was indeed built by German/Swiss architects. So, it was one of the few moments in the life of the Elbphilharmonie when its form and content seamlessly merged«, she impishly recalls. She particularly likes the fact that she is now allowed to play in different disciplines at the Reflektor, from the symphonic via a reading of her novel »Walzer für Niemand« [Waltz for Nobody] to the cineastic element with the projection of the animated film »Ma vie de Courgette« [My Life as a Courgette] for which she wrote the film music.

The ideas she is bringing to Hamburg manifest in a thrilling heterogeneous, cosmopolitan programme. Her invitations to the odd French-Swiss trumpeter Erik Truffaz and her long-standing partner, the jazz drummer Julian Sartorius, represent her first homeland. »The world is his instrument«, she gushes about Sartorius, »he strikes it and releases the sounds from the things he knows are confined there. Anyone who accompanies him on his performative walks returns enchanted by them.«

But then also an overview across the globe: an alarming melancholy such as from the songwriter Patrick Watson from Montreal can be found perfectly congenially in their songs. Hunger’s recently discovered passion for analogue electronics is reflected in the work of Japanese keyboard player Hinako Omori, who can also be heard on Hunger’s last two albums. And finally the Metropole Orkest, who have recently already pursued the proven orchestration of some of her songs in Bern. »The Orkest has a very distinctive configuration, is much more flexible and rhythmical than a classical symphony orchestra. Besides that, I have my four-member ›Halluzinationen‹ [Hallucinations] choir, who should again play a kaleidoscopic role. The evening should be very lively, from large-scale symphonic movements to delicate, soloistic moments.«

Of course, with all of this, you will also be able to experience Sophie Hunger’s special live charisma, which makes any auditorium become completely silent. She once very modestly commented on how she manages this for herself and her band:

»When we go out, we simply have a great professional dignity. We want to devote ourselves to the evening and the people and the music. We do not go onto the stage with our hands in our trouser pockets. And these quiet moments, we do not actually make them, the audience makes them. It is a joint creation, we enter into an agreement for this moment. This is a form of trust – or affection.«

This article appeared in the Elbphilharmonie magazine (Issue 1/25).