The Sophia Djebel Rose Interview
Between France and Morocco, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, France-based multi-instrumentalist and poet Sophia Djebel Rose first connected with music unconventionally. Performing in the streets with locals, Rose eventually started playing the guitar and shortly started her first band with Raoul Canivet as the duo of duality known as An Eagle In Your Mind. Releasing her sonic, self-titled debut during the early stages of the Covid pandemic, Rose quickly followed up with her first full-length LP entitled “Métempsycose” before breaking from the all-consuming serenading seance with 2025’s “Sécheresse.” A ritualistic revolution for the young artist, Rose’s poetic process is in full force on the album’s atmospheric interior while simultaneously exposing a gravitational light for all to hear no matter where you are on this mortal marble.
Are you originally from France? How did you initially connect with music, and the instruments such as guitar, synth, and harmonium? Was this relevant to your household growing up? Who were some of your earliest influences during your formative years, and how quickly did the gap from learning to play to wanting to perform and record music happen for you?
My mother is from France, and my father is from Morroco. I grew up in between the two countries. The only certitude I had when I was a child was that I wanted to write poetry, but this poetry finally took form into song-making quite late. I had no music in my childhood environment except for the Coran psalmody and a bit of French chanson. I'm an autodidact, and how I came to music is quite unconventional. The trigger event was the meeting with some people jamming in the street. That night, I was idle while looking for thrills, and I discovered the pleasure of singing. With these guys, we have never exchanged numbers, but we always met at the same street corner. It was magical. Except that sometimes no one was there. So it wasn't long before I found myself a guitar to play on my own. I then started performing in the exact way I did it in the street, without particular skills but with faith and pleasure. Regarding the Indian harmonium, it came a bit later while I was playing in a band. But I think the main argument in its favor was that it worked without electricity. Music had led me to leave the sedentary life behind and live in a truck, where electricity was a rare commodity.
“I’m an autodidact, and how I came to music is quite unconventional. The trigger event was the meeting with some people jamming in the street. ”
2022 saw the release of your debut solo album “Métempsycose.” Tell me about writing and recording this record and how this process was for you in comparison to forging music with the duo An Eagle In Your Mind. Jumping ahead to your most recent effort “Sécheresse,” what was most important to you when approaching this album as well as the overall process of bringing these songs to life?
“Métempsycose” was quite an intense and passionate gesture. It was home-recorded in a week or so. But the songs they contain come from further. It's a compendium of impressions and sensations that life offered me. And it was recorded in the same vein as An Eagle In Your Mind: in an autonomous way, with the invaluable help of Raoul Eden, with whom I founded An Eagle In Your Mind. And whose, by the way, I warmly recommend the solo work to all the American Primitive diggers. Regarding my last album, "Sécheresse," the recording process took a bit more time. I recorded three versions over a spanning period of a year, maybe interspersed with many concerts in all of Europe. I tried to find a balance between the raw energy of the stage and the lacework of the studio. I took time to work on textures, harmonium layers, and weird back vocals made of screams and whispers, but I always kept things close to what I was able to deliver live.
What are some of the backstories of tracks such as “Les Amandiers,” “Pareille au Torrent,” the album’s title tracks, and “L'Homme au Costume Doré.” What have been some of the most memorable moments while working on these songs? Is there anything else you would like to share further with the readers?
Honesty, the more I go, the more I'm unable to speak about the meaning of my songs. All these songs are about exiles and wandering. The point of a song is rather the forthcoming story than the backstory. I put words, while other people draw tarot cards. Songs are plants in the making and contain the seeds of the future. And right now, I'm gardening. In the end, music isn’t about music but more the ability to open parallel worlds. I wish everyone in their field to open spaces of freedom and holes in reality. There I think we can meet.
