The Copenhagen musician refuses to be defined by genre, geography or identity. Born in exile, raised between cultures and fuelled by underground electronic music, Soho Rezanejad is creating some of Scandinavia’s most compelling sonic landscapes.
Scandinavia has long perfected the art of polished pop. Soho Rezanejad is interested in something far less comfortable.
Dark, cinematic and emotionally uncompromising, the Copenhagen-based artist creates electronic music that feels closer to performance art than conventional songwriting. Her sound drifts between industrial techno, experimental pop and haunting vocal compositions, drawing as much from Diamanda Galás, Iranian classical music and Gregorian chant as it does from New York’s underground cinema and Berlin’s electronic scene.
Born to Iranian parents in a refugee camp outside Copenhagen, Rezanejad’s story is one of movement rather than belonging.
“There is no one image. Keeping an image of yourself won’t get you anywhere. I want to move and be moved by everything I encounter.”
Identity, she argues, should never become a prison.
“I am not a statue; I want to be free from others and myself.”
Her parents, political refugees unable to return to Iran, raised her between two worlds. Her mother fought for the freedoms she now enjoys, while her father recited poetry before she slept, creating a childhood shaped equally by activism and imagination.
“My mother fought for the rights I have today. My father would tell me his poems at night, and she would sing to me in Farsi.”
That duality continues to define her music.
Following the dissolution of her previous project, Gold Lip, Rezanejad withdrew into the studio to create Idolatry, the first release on her own Silicone Records imprint. Rather than reinvention, she describes the record as an ongoing search.
“The record is a rendition of hunger and searching for someone I’m getting closer to. I’m still shaping her.”
Her approach to creativity is almost philosophical.
“When you find a familiar pattern, it asks to be broken. Don’t get stuck on what you can’t do. Don’t get stuck on anything.”
Collaboration remains central to her process. Working alongside producer Miccel Mohr, she embraces precision without sacrificing instinct.
“The most important tool is the dynamic between you.”
Musically, Rezanejad refuses easy references. One evening, she may be immersed in Diamanda Galás; the next, Iranian sonatas or vintage New York cinema projected across the walls of her studio.
“I’ve set up a projector that plays classic New York films from the 1970s. They bring me closer to a narrative.”
Her Copenhagen is equally unconventional—not postcards and bicycles, but independent venues, artist-run communities and creative spaces that quietly sustain the city’s experimental underground.
“My studio inspires me. The water beside my home. The community at Mayhem. The beautiful souls at Warehouse 9.”
As Soho Rezanejad prepares to unveil new music, she occupies a rare space within contemporary electronic culture: intellectually fearless, emotionally exposed and entirely uninterested in becoming easy to categorise.
Which, in an industry obsessed with algorithms, may be her most radical statement of all.
DT 500 MAG: -SOHO’s UPCOMING SHOWS
– 31.10.2015 – Hotel Figueroa, Los Angeles (USA)
– 02.11.2015 – Hotel Figueroa, Los Angeles (USA)
– 11.11.2015 – Ideal Bar, Copenhagen (DK)
#RAPTURE!
Text by: Arthur Sopin
Photo by: Tao Hansen
#dt500mag 