PHOTOGRAPHY Dan Sjölund
CREATIVE DIRECTION COBRAH
STYLING Christopher Insulander
HAIR & MUA Ignacio Alonso & Johanna Larsson
BTS Axel Ahlgren
COVER TEXT DESIGN Peter Bonomi
COVER IMAGE: JACKET Han Kjobenhavn, CORSET Fana Bayne
“When I was young, I had this sense in my stomach – I still do, I can feel it – where I knew that I was going to be an artist,” COBRAH tells me on our call. We’re both in Manhattan this morning – although the 27-year-old Swedish electronic-pop musician has just flown in for a quick, 48-hour stint before jetting back to Stockholm, and later that day, to perform in Munich. “I used to be really jealous of kid pop stars,” COBRAH admits with a laugh, confessing the intense hatred she used to feel for Amy Diamond, a Swedish equivalent to American child pop stars like Hannah Montana and Hilary Duff. “I was so driven with jealousy!”
Now, COBRAH’s jealousy has completely vanished. In fact – besides growing up to become a pop star of her own – the musician is in New York to watch her song “BRAND NEW BITCH” on the big screen during the premiere of Poor Things director Yorgos Lanthimos’ newest film: Kinds of Kindness. In the scene, which was featured as a teaser for the film prior to its release, COBRAH’s lyrics – “Do my nails, cut my hair, I’m a brand new bitch / Got my face in Mugler and my new look sick / On a place we can share, put you on the A-list / Do my nails, cut my hair, I’m a brand new bitch” – blare in the background over the track’s distorted bassline while Emma Stone’s character dances wildly in a parking lot.
“I was in the studio working on new music, and suddenly I got this link to the trailer, and I freaked out,” recalls the musician, who celebrated the feature alongside her biggest fans by reacting to the film’s trailer on TikTok. “In this day and age we live so much on our phones and on TikTok and everything is streaming, so – apart from touring – nothing feels like it’s in the actual real world,” she explains. “Not that it doesn’t make me happy, but things like this – seeing [my music] out in a film and having it out in a real world somewhere that people can go to – that becomes way more real.”
Off the internet, COBRAH is fresh off her first-ever world tour for her EP, SUCCUBUS: a powerful, experimental-pop record capturing the beauty and chaos of unashamedly horny club nights with big, vibrating basslines and playful lyrics about listening to Charli XCX, feeling hot, getting fucked up on tequila, and being a dominatrix (fittingly, the tour came complete with a 60 kilogram BDSM bench custom-made in Poland). Back online, however, the musician has been adding another secret project to her collection: sliding into the DMs of her favourite DJs, her friends, and fellow pop stars to re-record some of the record’s tracks for a brand new SUCCUBUS remix EP coming soon.
“People are just so excited when their favourite artists collaborate,” she says (unknowingly predicting the joy and chaos online to follow two days after our call when Charli XCX and Lorde dropped their Brat remix, ‘The girl, so confusing version with Lorde’). “In electronic music, you’re a fan of the producer, but you’re probably not invested in their personal life,” COBRAH continues. “With pop celebrities, you wonder who they’re dating, who they’re friends with – doing a [collaborative] remix is giving their fans a little bit of their private life.”
For COBRAH, this meant joining forces with names including Polish electronic DJ and producer VTSS; self-described “hyper techno” DJ Zorza; viral Croatian techno DJ and producer Only Fire; and legendary Club Kid-turned-queer icon and fashion muse (and BRICKS cover star) Amanda Lepore – who, without any instructions from COBRAH, were each tasked with putting their own creative spin on a track from SUCCUBUS. “It was really exciting to have people do their own versions of my work,” says COBRAH, explaining how she had wanted to make a remix project for a long time, but – after being an independent artist for the first five years of her pop career – signing onto major label Atlantic Records last year finally allowed her the power and resources to go forth with the project.
It was really exciting to have people do their own versions of my work. I picked the friends that I have and really good musicians because I think that they can bring something to my work that I can’t bring myself.
She continues: “I picked the friends that I have and really good musicians because I think that they can bring something to my work that I can’t bring myself.” In particular, COBRAH notes how impressed she was with Amanda Lepore’s rendition of “TEQUILA”, which – via Lepore’s own creative perspective – had its volume raised, tempo accelerated, and lyrics updated with the Club Kid’s own high-camp rap verse, propelling the track to full-fledged gay club anthem. “When I got the music back I had barely any notes. I was like, ‘This is very you – it’s perfect’.”
COBRAH originally reached out to Lepore after seeing her lip-sync a few times online to her songs. Then – after Lepore put the finishing touches on the track in the studio – the duo met up for the first time IRL, hard launching the remix at an intimate Boiler Room set in London. “She was in full glam and I’m never in full glam when I don’t have to because it’s so much work,” recounts COBRAH, sharing her admiration for Lepore. “She was in full glam at the rehearsal and I was like, ‘What!’. She wears that corset from 3 pm until 3 am – it’s insane! She’s so committed.”
Following in the footsteps of Lepore – who has pioneered queer individuality and self-expression since the 1980s – COBRAH music has gathered-up a cult LGBTQ+ following due to her bold, unapologetic lyrics celebrating queer experiences and sexual liberation with influences ranging from ballroom culture to Stockholm’s BDSM club scene. “Suck my clit / You’ll love it / Get down, sit / I insist,” she chants on “SUCK”’s anthemic chorus – showcasing female pleasure at the forefront of her sexual desires.
Meanwhile, on “FEMININE ENERGY”, COBRAH sings, “Bisexual dynasty / That’s what it’s meant to be / Thong to thong, we sweat and then we take it off / There’s nothing wrong in owning what you fucking got,” – aligning herself with artists like Peaches who have historically brought unrestrained female sexuality into the pop mainstream by just being themselves.
“It doesn’t have to be a statement being who you are, or I don’t have to think about it as it being a huge statement,” COBRAH noted in a 2021 interview with Enfnts Terribles. “At least, what I want to convey… [is] that it doesn’t really matter if you’re queer or who I sing these songs about. It’s the vibe, the self-indulgence, and the confidence.” Intentional or not, the musician’s confidence towards her own sexuality holds a special meaning among queer fans who all-too-often are tasked with explaining their identity to others.
“I’m just extremely thankful for that,” the musician tells me, reflecting on the way the queer community has embraced her songs, aesthetic, and voice. “When I grew up, I had this feeling of being an outsider… everyone was kind of the same. It was a super small, suburban place,” she remembers. It wasn’t until during a stint working as a primary school music teacher that, in the evenings, she discovered latex and BDSM culture – ultimately marking the defining moments where she found her own community in Sweden.
Now – besides her signature bleached hair, gothic eye makeup, and extreme affinity for leather and latex – COBRAH has pushed even further against the societal norms she grew up with. “I’ve always wanted to avoid being a sexy girl or a beautiful woman [just] for the sake of being beautiful,” she told V Magazine earlier this year. “I always want it to have the texture of being a little bit disgusting or a little bit aggressive.”
Tying seamlessly into her dirty lyrics and throbbing bass lines, COBRAH’s videos and imagery bring this vision to life – arriving somewhere between intensely erotic and completely nightmarish. Just take her “BAD POSITION” visualiser, where the musician’s skin is pierced and pulled apart by large silver hooks and chains; her “SUCK” music video, where aliens spread her legs on an operating table, attaching giant sucking devices all over her body; or the “BRAND NEW BITCH” music video, where she slips around, dancing in a 4,000-gallon bath of slime.
“Doing what I like to do and being very, very, sexy, but very dominant makes me feel like I have control of the narrative of what it feels like being a woman for me,” she explains. While it lands far from artists like Sabrina Carpenter or Chappell Roan who have taken over the industry reclaiming how big, fun pop music is deep, too – within COBRAH’s unique pop formula – she proves that dark, sexy, and experimental music can be equally as important and meaningful.
COBRAH’s SUCCUBUS remix EP drops soon – in the meantime, get tickets for her upcoming tour dates here.