"Amélie Rousseaux moved halfway across the world to heal, and it is a pleasure to hear her processing. - Pitchfork

"A dreamy union of classic French pop and West Coast psych vibes" - Gorilla vs Bear

"‘Waves’ is a chamber pop beauty." - Stereogum

Sofia Bolt exhibits an unending capacity for restlessness on the past-wracked “Secret Memories,” which begins with rolling acoustic guitars then shape-shifts into different modes—thrumming Krautrock-inspired verses, a jagged-guitar-led pre-chorus, and a prog-pop outro that indicates the angst being expressed might soon be a thing of the past....Best songs of 2022 so Far - TIME Magazine

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Sofia Bolt is a sunlit groove, an autumn bicycle ride at dusk, a yearning phone call from across the ocean . . . Sofia Bolt is the French-born musician, songwriter, and producer, Amelie Rousseaux. Her nostalgic debut album, Waves, released in 2019, was praised by Iggy Pop, Pitchfork, and The Guardian. Since then she has collaborated regularly with songwriting legend Van Dyke Parks. The acclaimed soundtrack to Hedi Slimane’s CELINE W2020 collection was her creation as well. And most recently she can be heard singing in Cate Blanchett’s film production Fingernails. Bolt has toured with Interpol, Sharon van Etten, Stella Donnelly, and Rodrigo Amarante.

Bolt’s follow-up EP Soft Like a Peach from 2022, is a collage of pop melodies both forever young and yet wise beyond their years. They are songs she wrote about finding ways to forgive and accept herself while living between two continents. The lead single “Secret Memories” was voted top 10 songs of 2022 by TIME Magazine.

Recorded in Los Angeles at Tropico Beauty Studios, Bolt’s second and forthcoming LP Vendredi Minuit, was co-produced with longtime collaborator Oliver Hill (Dirty Projectors, Kevin Morby, Vagabon).

Dreamy, pensive, and visceral, Vendredi Minuit (French for Friday Midnight) delves into Bolt’s relationship with time, both lyrically and musically. Her shimmery, sparsely arranged songs feel like reflections on a personal but also collective past—referencing decades that have shaped her as a musician and a human, whether she lived through them or not. We get excerpts of Baudelaire; we brush with Mahler. Bolt celebrates her French grandmother in “Love is an Attitude.” “Milk,” with its wandering Velvet Underground-esque guitars, was inspired by a VHS of Titanic.

The songs on Vendredi Minuit are examinations of experience, of pleasure and pain, of love gained and love lost. “Bus Song” featuring Stella Donnelly—an ethereal cruiser inspired by riding the bus in Los Angeles—alternates between emotional tension and release. In the verse you can picture the narrator staring out the window, maybe taking in too much at once (note the urgent backup vocals pulsing over the minor chords), and then almost suddenly, as if a conscious choice, the chorus jostles us into the major chord as if to say—maybe just enjoy the ride, let it go . . . maybe just embrace the uncertainty: “On a hot drive / Maybe I’ll meet you / Caught across time.”

While Bolt weaves bits of French pop, 60s psych, and 90s trip hop through Vendredi Minuit’s streets and hallways, her classic melodic structures and spirited grooves keep us locked (dare we say ‘Bolt’-ed?) into a deliberate meditation on the present. Enter Sofia Bolt’s universe and a timeless reverie one may find. Vendredi Minuit arrives May 10, 2024 via Born Losers Records.

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