Sophia Djebel Rose was a poet before she could put pen to page, a child adrift between two lands, each departure etching itself into her bones. Of The Franco-Moroccan Rose longed to write—to trap the fleeting beauty of places she left behind, to tame the ache of perpetual exile. Literature and philosophy called her first, but she cast it all aside, forsaking safety for the open road: to walk, to risk, to swallow dust, to make poetry not from words alone, but from movement, from hunger, from the wind against her skin.
The road unraveled before her, stretching across Europe, the Maghreb, and the Middle East. She found voice and purpose, her harmonium breathing beneath instinct-driven melodies. No formal training, no rigid instruction—just the raw lessons of dim-lit clubs and uncertain stages, a devotion to possibility, a life lived at the edges. Now Sophia Djebel Rose lifts the veil on L’Homme au Costume Doré, a new offering from her forthcoming album Sécheresse, delivered through the flickering frame of an experimental short film.
L’Homme au Costume Doré unfolds in inverted ritual, a rite where knowledge is abandoned rather than acquired. Saturated riffs snarl against eerie, intoxicating drones, a tension between experimental discord and folk’s pastoral pulse. Rose’s voice, spectral yet searing, rises like smoke over the drone’s solitary hum, a lament, a summons, a hush before the storm. In this space where silence speaks louder than excess, she beckons the listener toward something stripped raw, something carved down to its essence. Echoes of This Mortal Coil, the spectral reverence of Dead Can Dance, the hypnotic hush of Chrystabell, the bone-deep wail of Zola Jesus, and the cool detachment of Nouvelle Vague hover at its edges of this extraordinary performance.
The film is adrift in Lnychian dream logic, taking a scenic drive into the subconscious. With a mask reminiscent of Les Yeux San Visage, our heroine displays funeral rites unraveling into moonlit bodies slipping beneath dark water, echoing a life lived and lost. This is a memento mori whispered in the language of abundance, found in the lush fever of untamed rivers, in the restless murmur of insects, and in the undeniable hush where we are already becoming memory.
Watch the video for “L’Homme au Costume Doré” below:
Defying classification, Sécheresse is an act of faith—an offering shaped with fervor and precision. Sophia Djebel Rose builds upon a lineage of fearless female pioneers who shattered stylistic boundaries, forging something both untamed and meticulously realized.
Djebel first surfaced in 2020 with two releases on Reverb Worship before self-producing her debut album, Métempsycose, in 2022. A relentless performer, she has graced over a hundred stages across Europe, leaving her mark on festivals and venues such as Grauzone Festival, Les Ateliers Claus, A38, and Le Sonic.
Sécheresse is slated for release on February 17 via avant-garde imprints WV Sorcerer Productions, Oracle, and Ramble Records.
Pre-order the album here.
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