I really want to say “SOPHIE has a lot to answer for”, but so too do video games and HRT. If you wanted evidence of big gay gaying up our frogs, this is probably it.
“What do those words mean?”, you may say — Tiiva is doing weird pop music, basically. We could say that in 2026 there’s two main tributaries of St SOPHIE — the Charlie XCX / Rebecca Black big brashy pop (INCIDENTALLY Black in 2026 is incredible if you’ve not caught up) and… this. Tiiva. What is this? Big synths, oodles of vocal production, a distinct sense of being pop. Pop + nausea. Hints that ’90s r’n’b and The Human League have been banged through a blender.
There’s a sense to one side as well that this reminds me a lot of Carl Stone. Stone dotes on cutting up pop samples beyond recognition — a musique concrète sensibility and method, but an output that has a particular set of timbres from pop music. Tiiva is arguably a lot more accessible than Stone — I can’t imagine anyone dancing to the latter, except that kind of dancing that looks like a fight against bad gravity. Tiiva is probably closer to club music, albeit the club music that’s pinging around your head as you walk home in the daylight faintly panicking about the imminent comedown.
It’s probably a testament to what home production sounds like in 2026 — this is a lushly put together and well-mastered piece. That’s one of those boring details that don’t necessarily interest a lot of people, but it’s significant given label Blue Tapes is definitely closer to the DIY side of music than not.
Shout out to the colour scheme on the CD as well. I remember a graphic designer speaking about trans pride saying that the relevant colours are impossible to work with and while Tiiva’s colour scheme isn’t purely the trans flag, it’s not far away. Ah actually, now I say that — it reminds me of the purple-y green-y washed out vaporwaveisms of Roman Sands RE:Build, a game that I played recently that’s got a really lush vibe.
One of the odder things in 2026 is that this kind of thing can easily fall by the wayside — it’s definitely a pop record, however bent out of shape it is, but I’m not sure if it’ll be popular. To its credit it’s weird and really well-produced, it’ll flick the switches of gamers and PC music sorts alike (I realise having written that that PC music is quite a misleading name for a genre) — I’d hope it finds its ways to the ears of the youngs and the gays, because it definitely deserves to jump out and baffle the fuck out of comedowns.
-Kev Nickells-
