Sofi Tukker Reconnect With Brazil on Intimate New Album ‘Butter’

With Butter, Sofi Tukker take a deliberate step away from the hyperactive energy of 2024’s Bread to explore something more fluid, tactile, and grounded. The duo—Sophie Hawley-Weld and Tucker Halpern—lean into their long-standing love for Brazilian music, but this time they commit fully, creating a record that prioritizes acoustic textures over electronic polish without abandoning their club roots entirely.

Where Bread stood for “Be Really Energetic And Dance,” Butter counterbalances that impulse. It’s less about movement, more about mood. The tempos slow, the edges blur, and the arrangements—guided by Brazilian producer Marcio Arantes—feel deliberately human. Instruments like accordion, horns, and classical guitar are allowed to breathe, giving the tracks a sensual density that’s rare in modern dance music.

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This is especially evident on tracks like “Perfect Someone,” which eschews build-drop formulas for patient, live-band interplay, and “Throw Some Ass,” a title that may mislead but, in this context, delivers groove over gimmick. Both songs offer reimaginings of prior bangers, but here they’re filtered through samba-reggae cadences and bossa nova flourishes, signaling a new kind of dance floor intimacy.

The album also serves as a personal milestone for Hawley-Weld, who frames the project as a return to Brazil—not just musically but emotionally. “My Portuguese improved, my relationships there grew,” she said, speaking to a rediscovered vitality rooted in her connection to the country. That sentiment courses through Butter, a record as much about place as it is about sound.

Sofi Tukker’s evolution here mirrors that of artists like Bonobo or Little Dragon—acts who began in club culture but gradually expanded into more nuanced, globally conscious terrains. Butter doesn’t chase hits. It invites immersion.