Sophie Soraya arrived in Berlin with a suitcase full of songs and a hunger that small towns couldn’t satisfy. From hushed acoustic sets in smoke-choked bars to roaring across Europe as the voice of alt-rock outfit Mirrors For Princes, she shaped her sound in the push and pull of restless ambition. What she sought was more than just music…it was understanding, it was connection, it was a mirror held up to the raw and unfiltered corners of herself.
Now, with her new single Never Not Unhappy, Soraya twists art-pop into something darker, a delicate but deliberate balance between vulnerability and defiance. Echoes of Björk’s precision lurks in the layers, Robert Smith’s black-lacquered sorrow lingers in the phrasing. It breathes like a dragon startled from its slumber: anger flaring, tenderness flickering—her voice shifting from a whispered confession to a full-throated cry.
A landscape of analogue synths, brittle drum machines, and brooding guitars builds beneath her. The song sways between cold detachment and aching intimacy, like stepping into an abandoned house where every creak and dust-heavy gasp, carries the weight of the past. Never Not Unhappy teases Hysteric, her full-length due in Spring 2025…an album that promises to unflinchingly stare into the mess of being human.
Never Not Unhappy arrives with a music video from director Herman Gritsenko, a flickering glimpse into Soraya’s world; where theatrics meet tenderness, where movement speaks louder than words. Petals drift, romantic candles burn low, satin skirts catch the light as she stands alone beneath a solitary spotlight, a figure lost in reverie, caught between ritual and release. The nightclub is hushed, its silence thick with expectation, with memory, with something unspoken. It conjures Siouxsie Sioux’s presence: feral yet poised, delicate yet unbreakable. A performance both restrained and raw, where every motion feels like a secret waiting to be told.
Watch the video for “Never Not Unhappy” below:
Listen to Never Not Unhappy below and order the song here.
Entering a new chapter in her music career, Soraya started releasing singles from her upcoming debut LP Hysteric at the end of 2024 and has already managed to introduce her fresh material to live audiences on multiple occasions, including opening for Panda Bear (of Animal Collective) at Lark in Berlin. Sophie Soraya will join Skuppin’s Germany tour as a special guest, performing in Berlin on March 7th and Hamburg on March 8th.
Follow Sophie Soraya:
Or via: