The Singles Jukebox

The champ is back…

[Video][Website]
[6.54]

William John: “Vermillion,” long ago granted rights to pride of place in the Jukebox’s hypothetical mausoleum, was a resigned acknowledgment of one overwhelmed by the city; it remains a beautiful distillation of what it feels to like to be lonely in a crowd. Sofi de la Torre is still whispering on “Sit Down,” but not out of fear of being heard. There’s an energy to her voice that immediately strikes the listener as being cavalier, defiant, even scornful. When repeated over and over and paired with some discordant double bass spiccato of which Arthur Russell would likely approve, the title’s mantra becomes an ominous rallying cry. There’s something inspiring about the way the song serves as her transition from swallowed to swallower.
[8]

Danilo Bortoli: I used to see Sofi de la Torre’s #popdoneright tag as down-right elitism, but recently she has proven there is something different about her approach to pop these days. “Sit Down” is, at the same time, bubblegum bass — one simply cannot overlook the similarities — loaded with Macintosh Plus references (vaporwave still lives apparently). And knowing this is fundamental: whereas “Vermillion” was the act of someone placing emotion and catharsis above everything else, this time around la Torre is finding a very specific aesthetics for herself — something for her to work upon and fool around with. For someone so early into a career, identity is fungible. This is the sound of exploration and, when given a closer look, might not mean anything — the video acts as proof. That said, though the chorus comes off as a commandment, there is no anger here. The production is flawless. It’s unclear what she really wants. Maybe because she is doing something very right.
[9]

Hannah Jocelyn: The thing about Sofi is that, from “Vermillion” on, she’s played so many pop tropes straight, from self-empowerment anthems to slow-burning break-up songs, but has always filtered them through her own quirky, hyper-specific lens. Until now, that is. Jonas W. Karlsson can only pitch-shift so many times before the formulaic attempts at experimentation inadvertently reveal the lack of structure underneath. In “Sit Down,” there’s none of the emotional frankness and honesty that was part of her other songs — instead, there’s just a couple of vague lines repeated ad nauseum, the only memorable one being “you a clown.” It’s so empty and baffling that I have difficulty with giving Sofi the benefit of the doubt — it’s easy to forgive something like the abrupt ending of “Vermillion” when the rest of that song is so effective, but no part of “Sit Down” is strong enough to redeem any other. At best, I’m sure this is a silly one-off and doesn’t signal things to come. Ain’t nobody got time for this shit, though.
[2]

Cassy Gress: Maybe it’s just the context in which I’m hearing this, two-thirds of the way through a long holiday weekend in which my husband and my mother keep rubbing each other the wrong way due to nobody’s particular fault, just their natures, but boy do I need to hear this right now. So chill. So chill, so cool, sitting on the front of a car with Ray-Bans on, so laid-back against the metallic rhythm of clunking pipes. Nobody got time for this shit. Sit your ass down.
[9]

Alfred Soto: For a minute, Sofi sounds as if she wants to go Britney in 2001: whispered obscenities over a squelchy rhythm track. Which I would have liked! But the vocal distortions signal what goes wrong: the proceedings are too cute, too tentative.
[5]

Jonathan Bradley: The hook is only meme-worthy. Those obtuse and oblong synths, free-floating into unwelcome places are more. “A face like that, acting cheerful”: the sass does little to deflect whatever depths are contained here.
[6]

Peter Ryan: She always sounds fresh but this is an incremental progression, more kinetic but at the same time wobbly, buzzed but having not yet lost the beat. But for an artist who does so well with fill-in-the-blanks and leaving things unsaid, conceptually this is slight enough to blow away — “telling someone off” is as universal as it gets, but there’s no angle to speak of, nothing to shoulder the weight other than the sonics; the result is venomless when it’s meant to sting.
[5]

Juana Giaimo: I usually enjoy Sofi de la Torre’s hushed and distant vocals, but this song needs a stronger voice that can stand out — and vocal distortion can’t replace that. 
[4]

Rachel Bowles: A maximalism of sampled sounds used sparingly, like rhythmically dripping taps from a sound bank shared with dude music producer SOPHIE and trip-hop singer-songwriter Banks. Disparate beats, glitches, and synthesisers are dispatched with space to breathe and build up into something palpable, both angry and melodic. It’s a perfect “fuck you” anthem, a clap back for street harassers, date-rapists and online MRAs. Misogyny is ridiculous but still dangerous and physically threatening: “You a clown, make me watch my back cos I’m fearful.” Adding layers of her own vocals, synthed for extreme high and low pitch, Sofi works towards a polyphony that draws on the anger of any woman has ever had to waste her time on this shit.
[8]

Thomas Inskeep: Upbeat pop turned on its side, its tone dark and menacing, with percussion that sounds like it’s being played on metal pipes. De la Torre makes it clear from her delivery that she does not have the time for your mess, and is not fucking with you. 
[7]

Anthony Easton: The bouncy instrumentation becomes disorientating and adding to the ominous quality of the rest of the enterprise. It overwhelms her voice in spaces, but where it doesn’t overwhelm, it has the calm fury of someone who has made very deliberate choices. 
[10]

Will Rivitz: There’s little more frustrating than the implication that the state of pop in the Year Of Our Lord 2016 is disappointing; doubly so if that assertion is couched in a catchy hashtag. Despite such a fate befalling the #POPDONERIGHT addition to its title, though, “Sit Down” is indeed “pop done right.” Bouncy chorus buoyed along via carefully shuffling hi-hats: check. Vocal chops and synths that sound like they’ve been run through a ping-pong-ball shooter: check. Most importantly, slow build from skeletal intro to full-throated explosion of electronic elements: check. It may not be #POPDONEMEMORABLE, but it’s a servicable chunk of electro-pop if ever there was one.
[7]

Will Adams: That Sofi is responsible for one of the most important songs to me of all time makes “Sit Down” both exciting and frustrating to hear. Exciting due to the elements of the production offering more aggressive sounds than “Vermillion” — like the glass shard percussion, at times approaching something like Kate Boy — but frustrating due to its lack of focus. With its disjointed structure and reliance on quick tropes (like pitch shifting, mixed way too high), “Sit Down” sounds like a studio experiment that, while interesting from an artistic standpoint, sits uncomfortably against Sofi’s stellar track record. I’ll simply hope it’s a blip in the radar.
[5]