Sopor Aeternus and The Ensemble of Shadows (Latin: Sopor Aeternus "eternal sleep") are a neo-classical darkwave project based in Frankfurt, founded in 1989 by Anna-Varney Cantodea.
She has a hardcore cult following (www.instagram.com/sopor_aeternus_tattoos/) The music is known for its extremely personalized, melancholic and pessimistic nature, drawing on a number of different musical and visual styles .Cantodea identifies as female although she was assigned male at birth. She has never undergone surgery to change sex and does not intend to.
Cantodea's pseudonym is derived from several sources. Firstly, the common name Anna and secondly the Latin word cantodea, roughly meaning "I sing, goddess". She had been using the stage name "Varney" prior to 1997, that name was taken from the Victorian Gothic horror story Varney, the Vampire; or the Feast of Blood.
The sound of Sopor Aeternus is rooted in renaissance and baroque music, with frequent use of brass instruments, woodwinds, strings, pipe organs, bells, and guitars. Cantodea has clearly stated that she creates her music about herself, solely for herself. Major themes include death, unrequited love, karmic pain, loneliness, sadness, spirituality and failure (or as I like to call it...life).
Cantodea has also featured occultism and sexuality into her lyrics. A strong recurring theme is transexuality, especially the removal of male genitalia. Several albums feature Cantodea nude with a vagina (edited in post-production).
Anna-Varney seems to be a voluntarily Isolated person, as she has spoken of fear, disgust, or sadness when in the presence of most individuals, though she does state that she is less isolated now than she used to be. In any case, she does not perform live, "in front of humans."
She also seems to have a unique sense of caustic and cynical humour and this has been so far revealed in the lyrics of songs such as ‘Cornucopia D’Amour’ , the titles of some earlier songs (i.e. ‘Shave, If You Love Me‘) and the cover versions of well-known pop songs which were part of ‘Have You Seen This Ghost?’ album (the song ‘Hello’ is a Lionel Richie cover and ‘Holding Out for A Hero’ is the cover of the Bonnie Tyler classic).
With 16 studio albums to date and various singles and remixes there is lots of music to dive into and also a rather impressive online shop where alongside loads of special edition vinyl, cassettes and cds you can also buy...
Sopor Aeternus Fortune Cookies
11 loving messages of death
Sopor Aeternus Leichenduft Corpse-Fresheners
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