Sophie Moleta was born in New Zealand but spent a good part of her childhood in Australia. Her theatrical and dramatic style - essential for any major artistic work - was learnt from her parents. Her father was an academic specialist in medieval and Renaissance Italy and her mother was an accomplished musician and accompanist to Dietrich Fischer-Diskau. At home, religion and classical music were very important. She learnt to play the piano when she was four years old. She composed odes to Jesus Christ when she was ten. But at fourteen, she got her first radio - and with it, the world. She discovered the Sex Pistols and David Bowie (she later became a groupie of his). Not long after that, she sang in a punk group, The Brautigans, in homage to the writer. In a spirit of adventure, she crossed the Australian bush and lived for a year in India. She went to France where she discovered Radio-France (!) and its classical concerts and trained as a sound engineer.
sBut after the death of her mother, Sophie Moleta returned to New Zealand
and began to write songs. These saw the light of day on her first recording,
Slow Scape, and in Trust, an intimate diary covering the period from 1992
to 1998. It was with this self-produced record and her Roland RX-7 synth
that -- thanks to the girls of the group Pooka - she returned to France
at the invitation of the organisers of the festival " Les femmes
s'en mêlent " to give some concerts. It was at these concerts
that she enthralled audiences which included Bernard Lenoir and Hector
Zazou. Bernard Lenoir was apparently heard to say he'd been begged by
fellow concertgoers to invite her to do one of his Black Sessions....
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In August 1999, Sophie Moleta left for England to record in Peter Gabriel's Real World studios under the aegis of Hector Zazou -- whom she ended up exhausting by the manner in which she threw herself into her songs as though they were her last task on earth. In March 2000, Dive came out at last on Le Village Vert. Paradoxically it revealed a less anxious Moleta, a woman open to the world and ready for everything. A tour through Europe followed Dive's release. Sophie Moleta was then living in Brighton, where she was working in parallel with the trance group Human Movement. The song Love has come again ended up on a lot of British compilations of electronic music.
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Sophie Moleta has shown no sign of slowing down in her composition and
recording, as is shown by her discography which now boasts three albums
and an EP ready for publication. The songs she puts on her website are
very sparse -- and calmer, too. But just as deep, just as divine.
official artist website
Photo of Sophie © Sal Criscillo www.criscillo-photo.com
