- SHARES NEW SINGLE & VIDEO “FORGIVE ME” WITH MAHMUT ORHAN
- ANNOUNCES TOUR DATES IN EUROPE, WESTERN ASIA, AUSTRALIA & 2nd
SHOWS ADDED IN SOLD OUT US MARKETS - REVEALS COVER ART & TRACKLIST FOR NEW ALBUM WET TENNIS
OUT APRIL 29
SOFI TUKKER’s WET TENNIS era has begun! Following last month’s release of the
“Original Sin” video and announcement that WET TENNIS, the anticipated follow up to their
GRAMMY nominated debut album Treehouse, will be released on April 29th, the group has
revealed the cover art and tracklist and is sharing ”Forgive Me”, one of the album’s
meditations on resilience, radical self-acceptance, and joy. True to the global scope of SOFI
TUKKER’s creativity, the single is a collaboration with Turkish producer Mahmut Orhan
whose string arrangement on the song draws inspiration from traditional Turkish music.
SOFI TUKKER shares, “‘Forgive Me’ is about forgiving yourself for the worst thing you’ve
ever done, and forgiving another for the harm they caused you, which is the ultimate
surrender. It’s about loving someone so much that you will let them hate you if that’s what they
need to do to move on, and hoping that one day, the person will come to forgiveness on their
own.
We wrote this song with one of our favorite artists in the world, the legendary Mahmut Orhan,
and were heavily influenced by Mahmut’s Turkish roots. His orchestration really heightens the
drama and raw emotion of the song, and is evocative of longing. Even though it’s dramatic
and emotional, it also makes you wanna dance and sway. It has a sexiness that Mahmut often
has in his music, that we love.”
“The most exciting part of this song is having that sense when you feel multiple emotions at the
same time. You can feel sorrow, dance, relaxation, melancholy, joy and many others
simultaneously. This song is a flood of emotions.” says Mahmut Orhan,”It gives hope, what
we all really need nowadays.”
WATCH THE “FORGIVE ME” MUSIC VIDEO
The “Forgive Me” video is one of SOFI TUKKER”s most ambitious and visually striking to
date. Filmed on location at Evcik Beach and Kilyos Beach in Istanbul, it takes us from the
confinement of a white box room to the country’s seaside cliffs in a speeding car.
Choreographer Tanem Işık, a sixteen year old phenom from Istanbul, created the modern
dance piece in the video where she plays Sophie’s double in a battle that depicts Sophie’s battle
with negative impulses that get away from her. A group of modern road warriors in surreal gear including Tucker and Mahmut, race to her side and cast a circle around her as she reconciles
with her darker self. The cast wears emerging Turkish fashion designers from NEW GEN.
The group says of making the video, “We shot the music video together with Mahmut in
Istanbul. It was the first international trip we took after Covid and our whole crew was so
giddy to be traveling again. We laughed for 4 days straight. We have so many inside jokes
from that time…. the camaraderie and fun on set was unparalleled. At the end of the trip, we
were sharing a final dinner together with our crew and Mahmut’s crew, going around the
table, explaining what the trip meant to us, and everyone shared such moving anecdotes… It
was what life is all about. Creating art together with people you admire and love. Turning a
dif icult experience (what the song is about) into a beautiful experience (the creation of the
music and visuals)… that alchemy makes life feel magical.
The video is about the journey of losing oneself and then ultimately coming home to oneself.
Sophie starts of in what feels like a straight jacket, struggling against herself, and then the
troubled part of herself gets let loose. She spends the rest of the video trying to find herself
again and comes across Tucker and Mahmut who help her.”
The video’s director Hakan Can adds,”Like any other director, there are themes that I’m
most interested in. From the first meeting for Forgive Me I was inspired by the idea of
creating a highly personal piece of work, capturing Sofi’s initial intentions in writing the song
centering around the theme of forgiveness. I came up with the concept of creating a clone of
Sofi, symbolizing a darker side of her. After finding the central narrative, I was looking for
ways to incorporate both Tukker and Mahmut Orhan into the story. This resulted in a journey
of Sofi and her clone searching for a virtuous tribe led by Mahmut Orhan, and Tukker as a
brash racing driver zipping around in dreamlike places.
The group have announced more dates of their WET TENNIS world tour. SOFI TUKKER will
tour across Europe, Western Asia, and Australia along with the previously announced
North American dates. Due to high demand, they have added second shows in sold out US
markets including Washington DC and Portland. All dates are on sale now and the
full tour is detailed below.
WATCH THE “ORIGINAL SIN” MUSIC VIDEO
In February, the band released “Original Sin” to announce the album. The track is a mantra of
being kind to yourself and rejecting imposed social mores. It’s a duet that parachutes you into
the center of SOFI TUKKER’s world with a juggernaut rhythm and an instantly memorable
hook. Like “Forgive Me”, it is a soundtrack to the journey towards self-liberation. The
accompanying video is steeped in playful eroticism and introduces the joyful and seductive
iconography of WET TENNIS. In true SOFI TUKKER fashion, they decamped to a tropical
location radiating lush greens and sunlight and realized the video in Oahu, Hawaii with
director Aerin Moreno and creative direction by Amber Park (Camila Cabello,
Madison Beer). They wear custom WET TENNIS outfits designed by Johnny Wujek (Katy
Perry, HBO’s Legendary) in the video’s very metaphorical and ecstatic tennis match.
Artists who command thousands of people to dance and celebrate in unison are ceremonial
artists, sparking the fire for everyone to gather around and commune. When in person events
became impossible, SOFI TUKKER’s livestreams were a daily ceremony. Sophie and Tucker
were able to interact in real time with their community, experimenting and getting feedback on
ideas that would eventually become WET TENNIS, and in the process became the 2nd-most
livestreamed artist of 2020 according to Pollstar Magazine. This is an album made for their fans
but perhaps more significantly, with them. They recorded several songs during the past two
years, many with a darker tone that reflected the challenges happening. SOFI TUKKER were
very intentional in choosing the songs that made the album, making a conscious decision to
have it embody a healing positivity, not a shortsighted positivity that doesn’t recognize the
turmoil in the world but one that helps navigate them and effect positive change.
SOFI TUKKER have achieved gold and platinum records in every continent other than
Antarctica and their global audience began to coalesce around the streams, eventually creating a
community that dubbed itself the Freak Fam. Along with activities related to the group, Freak
Fam have helped each other during this difficult time in both emotional and material ways.
When many members of Freak Fam had their prom canceled and were missing the big
moments in their lives, SOFI TUKKER held a virtual prom and encouraged everyone attending
to wear their freakiest wares. More recently, the Freak Fam has taken the form of a bi-weekly
SiriusXM radio show, Freak Fam Radio, on Diplo’s Revolution Channel 52 that airs
every other Wednesday at 10 PM ET/ 7 PM PT.
ABOUT SOFI TUKKER:
SOFI TUKKER, the genre-defying duo of Sophie Hawley-Weld and Tucker Halpern, is
celebrated for their inclusive and global perspective on electronic music as well as their work’s
themes of liberation, unity, and self-empowerment. In 2021, SOFI TUKKER achieved their third
Billboard Dance Airplay chart #1 for their collaboration with John Summit on “Sun Came Up,”
and they also released a tri-lingual collaboration with Amadou and Mariam, “Mon Cheri”. The
band is also frequently tapped for remixes by some of the biggest artists in the world including
Billie Eilish, Lady Gaga, and Katy Perry. SOFI TUKKER are also passionate activists who have
raised funds and awareness for Planned Parenthood, The Trevor Project, National Alliance on
Mental Illness, Natural Resources Defense Council and the March for Our Lives. Their commitment to equality and fostering community while recombining the pillars of dance music
into exciting new shapes has established them as a singular act.
SOFI TUKKER SOCIALS:
Instagram / Facebook / Twitter / Soundcloud / Spotify / Apple Music /
Deezer
TikTok / YouTube / Twitch / Discord