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On June 26, Sofie Fatouretchi will release her debut album, Cult Survivor<\/a>,<\/i> on Stones Throw<\/a>. For the Vienna-based musician, who performs under just her first name, it’s a bit of a reunion; early in her career, she had worked for the label. “When I was 19, I applied for an internship at Stones Throw Records, not really thinking that I would get it,” she says on a recent call. “I wrote a very long, convincing letter – please hire me – and they gave me an internship.”<\/p>\n Sofie, who grew up in California and spent her teenage years in Austria, had graduated high school early and went on to study performance violin and computer science. “I guess that there has always been that love for music there, but the reason I ended up getting a job there was because I had a technical background to fall back upon,” she says. She was the label’s digital manager for several years and worked on the A&R end for a couple artists, including her former roommate MNDSGN<\/a>, who she collaborated with on “Abeja<\/a>,” a track from a Stones Throw mix<\/a> she curated. Sofie, who is also a DJ, went on to spend a handful of years working with Boiler Room<\/a> when the streaming network was still in its infancy.<\/p>\n On Cult Survivor<\/i>, Sofie weaves narrative songwriting through a collection of soft pop-rock with occasional, exceptionally subtle nods to early ’80s electronic funk. There are traces of Los Angeles on the album, notably in the songs “Hollywood Walk of Fame” and “Figueroa,” two tracks that stand out in particular for their vivid lyrics. However, Sofie made Cult Survivor<\/i> in Vienna, writing the songs primarily on a ’70s keyboard in a university basement.<\/p>\n