A little optimism never goes amiss, and Sofia Kourtesis has this quality in abundance. “This year I have a new motto, do you want to hear it?” she asks eagerly. “It’s ‘less perfection, more corazón’.”
Translating from Spanish as “less perfection, more heart”, Kourtesis settled on this super-positive mantra “because everything in the last couple of years was so serious and heavy on me”. The Peru-born, Berlin-based musician brings it up when discussing her upcoming live shows, but there’s also a huge amount of heart in her stellar debut album ‘Madres’, out later this month via Ninja Tune. Still, that’s not to say that the sublime electronica collection isn’t also packed with moments of total perfection.
‘Madres’ is a truly special record. Hugely personal, it’s at times joyful and euphoric, at others poignant and personal. “It’s like a rollercoaster of emotions,” Kourtesis says when she calls from her mother’s house in Berlin. “I felt like in the past, I always let the machines talk for me. It was more about making music about having a good time, and [having] a really good beat that you can play in a club or festival.” Now, as she continues her musical journey, Kourtesis wants to dig deeper. “It’s definitely [about] a chapter in my life that is very important because life is so fragile, and when you get older, it gets even more fragile,” she adds.
The life Kourtesis has lived over the last few years has had a huge impact on ‘Madres’. “When you’re into your mid-thirties, you realise ‘now it’s getting [to] the serious adult life’. You’re not a child anymore [and] then you realise that you have another perspective. And I guess it’s very important also to [use my] platform to tell people that they’re not alone in what they’re going through.”
Born in Peru’s capital, Lima, Kourtesis moved to Germany when she was 17, first to Hamburg and then to Berlin, where she settled. One of the reasons she left Peru was the maelstrom of emotions she experienced after being expelled from school for kissing a girl, then being sent to a priest to atone. “I guess the reason why I left home was because of these things happening to me, thinking that I was the child of some dark, spiritual [world], because the priests couldn’t understand why I was behaving like this,” she says. “And [then] the psychiatrists wanted to tell me that it was ‘so wrong’ and ‘shame on me’. It was definitely one of the reasons I left.”
In Germany, she found a more liberal home. While studying film, she started to promote indie music nights and briefly fronted a hip-hop band. “I used to be a rapper, a very bad rapper,” Kourtesis recalls with a laugh. “Oh my god, I was so bad, bless my friends for coming to my concerts.” In time she realised that her skills lay elsewhere: in the physical process of making hip-hop music, and the joy of sampling her favourite soul and jazz songs. Kourtesis poured this – plus her appreciation of electronic sounds – into the first tunes she ever made, back in 2011.
Since then, she’s released a string of EPs including 2021’s excellent ‘Fresia Magdalena’, which NME praised for the way it “effortlessly ties her artistic message and inspirations together”. Kourtesis’ jubilant, floor-filling dance tracks sound just at home on festival stages – her performance at Glastonbury 2022 was hailed as “heart-warming and rave-inspiring” – as they do in sweaty clubs. She has also supported the likes of Bicep and Caribou on tour. “I always say I went to the University of live music with Caribou, because Dan [Snaith] is so amazing live,” she says.
In between live commitments, Kourtesis was travelling back to Peru whenever she could. Only months after her father had passed away in 2021, her mother was diagnosed with cancer and became increasingly unwell. Despite the grim prognosis, Kourtesis never gave up hope. “I think the love to a mother, or the love from parents to a child, is so huge that it makes you be so creative and look for the impossible,” she says today.
Looking for the impossible brought Kourtesis to renowned neurosurgeon Dr Peter Vajkoczy, whom she contacted via Instagram. After they met in person, Vajkoczy agreed to operate on Kourtesis’ mother although other doctors had said there was nothing they could do. “He was so ready to help,” says Kourtesis with palpable gratitude. “What he said is: ‘I could fail, but I want to try somehow to make this work.'”
Incredibly, the surgery was a success, and Kourtesis’ mother now lives near her in Berlin. Vajkoczy’s impact on their life has been profound across the board. “I think he really makes me brave [and] makes me [take] more risks,” Kourtesis says. “He really inspires me to be, right now, a much better version of myself.” ‘Madres’ is dedicated in part to the doctor, who has become such a fixture in their lives that Kourtesis even took him for a night out at Berlin superclub Berghain.
This sense of hope, positivity and – yes – corazón shines through on the album. Take the glorious ‘How Music Makes You Feel Better’, a ray of musical sunshine with a recurring hook that spins the track’s title over skittering beats and warm synth riffs. Throughout the project, ecstatic vocal melodies and earworm instrumentals are coupled with rigid basslines. “I always say my heart is Latin American, but the motor is German,” Kourtesis explains. “It’s a combination of the love and the heart of South America and all [its] histories, but I use a lot of Berlin bassline and beats.”
‘Madre’ is also political in places; a standout called ‘Estación Esperanza’ samples audio from a Peruvian protest against homophobia. “It’s very, very important to protect the new generation,” Kourtesis says. “They’re taking so much risk in being so brave and proud to be open about how they are and who they want to be. I think right now, if I don’t [stand up for them], I will be a hypocrite.”
Ultimately, ‘Madres’ feels like a beacon of hope – something Kourtesis believes listeners will recognise when they hear it. “I want them to feel that they should believe and be strong, and do their very best to help the people that they love,” she says. “I want them to know that they’re being heard [and] that people they don’t know [in person] want the best for them.”
It’s a musical brew designed to be soothing and rousing at the same time – a tricky combination that Kourtesis definitely pulls off. “I want people [to feel like] they can switch off, put the music on, feel better, feel brave and have a lot of hope, too,” she says, “so they can fight like a warrior for the things that they love.”
Sofia Kourtesis’ new album ‘Madres’ will be released on October 27 via Ninja Tune