Sophia (Robin + Will) - November 19 '03: Oxymoron, Berlin (D)

Review Large events throw their shade ahead. For example the publication of the long expected fourth Sophia album "People Are Like Seasons", which will be in the shops around the middle of January 2004.  For a few dozen guests in Berlin´s  Oxymoron,  Mastermind Robin Proper-Sheppard, with his sidekick on the keyboard Will Foster, already presented a first view of the new work.  And eventhough the greatly produced songs of the album will sound substantially more sumptuous in its studioversions, the unfortunately very short Sophia performance in the Hackeschen Hofen nevertheless revealed some interesting conclusions.  For example on Robins present soul life.  Because eventhough the short appearance began with "I Left You", the new songs and Robins announcements nevertheless showed clearly that the utterly dark phase, which gave us the first two Sophia studio-albums, is now once and for all passé.  The resorts to the old songs, which would have been actually not at all absolutely necessary with this kind of Showcase, show us that the old songs and the associated tendencies and feelings still mean a lot to Robin. Nevertheless Robin played intensive versions of "If Only" and "So Slow", which were an audible contrast to the new songs like "Swept back" (with its beautiful e-Piano-sound one of the highlights of the album) or "Fool".  That after halfway the show, the noise level in the Oxymoron noticeably rose irritated Robin obviously, although he noticed that it´s good fun for him to play with the volume-level of the public:  In the calmer moments it became noticeably quieter in the public and with the louder passages the maintenances also audibly got louder.  After the  concluding piece of the new album, "Another trauma", Robin said goodbye. And while he played all the guitars on the album himself, he messed up the intro to the song very badly, but he didn’t leave without another suggestion for the remaining part of the evening: “And now let us all drink City Slang’s beer, because that’s what we are here for!” Well, he might have been wrong about that! Anyhow, we look forward to seeing him again, on tour with the full band, in February. Original text by Carsten Wohlfeld for www.gaestliste.de / translation by maRz for SophiaMusic.tk Pictures by Carsten Wohlfeld