Offie Mag

Getting stuck in the same cycles is one of life's less glamorous inevitabilities. You tell yourself ‘this time will be different’, only to find yourself six months later making the exact same mistakes with slightly different packaging.

It's that frustratingly human phenomenon that sits at the heart of Sofie Royer's newly announced fourth album before/after, arriving September 4th via Stones Throw.

The Austrian-Iranian artist has shared lead single 'Sesquicentennial', a track born from a particularly hot post-SXSW moment in Texas after spotting the word on a bumper sticker. Meaning "every one hundred and fifty years", the term sent Royer down a rabbit hole of thinking about repetition, fate and the patterns that seem to follow us around no matter how hard we try to shake them.

There's something fitting about a song concerned with cycles arriving from an artist who has spent the last few years quietly refining her own craft. Whether you know her from her previous records, her work helping build Boiler Room's Los Angeles presence, an Offie Mag cover star, or simply through her knack for writing pop music that feels a little left of centre, Royer has always had a talent for making introspection feel cinematic rather than self-indulgent.

'Sesquicentennial' continues that tradition. It's reflective without becoming weighed down by itself, sitting comfortably in that strange feeling of standing on the edge of something before you've quite figured out what it is.

The accompanying video, shot by Royer during a recent trip through China, leans into that sense of displacement and discovery. Part travel diary, part Lost in Translation homage, it drifts through snapshots of everyday life.

If before/after is about conflict, it's largely an internal one. Royer describes the record as an examination of the battles we have with ourselves, the habits we can't seem to break and the versions of ourselves we're constantly negotiating with. Even the album artwork gets the point across perfectly: the front cover shows Royer's face pinned beneath a boot, while the reverse reveals she's the one wearing it.

After all, as Royer puts it herself, it's always you versus you.

Words by Louis Rowland