You might recognise Sophie Löw from her day job in the Viennese rock band Culk. 2022 sees her step out as a solo artist under the name Sophia Blenda, and Wo bleib ich is the latest single to emerge from that project. Culk are a band with a lot of musical muscle behind them, capable of summoning up storms of guitar, and that sense of scale and force is something that Löw carries over to her solo work. Here however, departing from the violence of Culk’s work, the music here is grand and elegant, with mournful strings providing the power for Wo bleib ich‘s surges and swings. Buried within that power and size however, is a sense of vulnerability, of the individual pushed and pulled around, pairing a driving relentlessness with the emotional toll of endlessly marching on. Bringing it all together into a coherent whole is a work of delicate skill, which makes for an overpowering, but striking, stained-glass window of a song. Löw says: “For me, the song, along with the video, reflects the exhausting feeling of powerlessness, and having to continuously fight for equality or visibility. The material is combative and challenging, but its interpretation is fragile and calm. I want to show in my music that these opposing qualities can coexist together, and even mutually reinforce each other”. The debut Sophia Blenda solo album, Die Neue Heiterkeit, is out on August 19 2022.