Sophomore is the electronic music project by literal sophomore Olle Andersson, from Gothenberg, Sweden.
For this recording, Sophomore used only the Swedish-native synthesizer, sampler, and wonder-toy OP-1. The track consists of a simple arpeggiated synth, choppy voice samples, sporadic drums, with more subdued synthesizers pulsing in the background. Though only clocking in at 6 minutes, the “Duck and Cover” feel tangibly shorter: there’s a lot of subtle manipulation involved, fading different sounds and samples into a soup of sleepy psychedelia.
The video itself is a VHS-quality montage of humans building a rocket, humans flying a rocket, and some kind of masochistic mutiny at the end. While the video is an appropriate accompaniment for the track, it’s not a visual style we haven’t seen before.
Most impressively, “Duck and Cover” is played completely live, with no computer manipulation involved. Sophomore only works with analog hardware, rather than digital workstations. His philosophy for recording reads like a philosophy for life: “nothing becomes perfect or according to plan”.
