In mid-April of this year, Sophie Auster (New York, 1987) had completed nine out of the 10 tracks of Milk for ulcers, her fourth album. She only had one left, which she wanted to dedicate to her father, writer Paul Auster, who after the final review in the hospital (after months of battling lung cancer) decided to stop treatment. "A week before he died, he asked me to finish it so he could listen to it", recalls the composer, singer, and model over the phone from her home in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn. "So I sat down to write against the clock. I worked under a lot of pressure, as I couldn't come up with a chorus that expressed well what I was feeling. It had to be an emotional song but not so much that I would break down every time I performed it," she says with a lump in her throat, pausing to avoid crying. "I still find it hard to talk about it...", she apologizes.
The title of the album ("Milk for ulcers") says it all. "Some of the tracks were composed before the dramatic events that happened in my family," she comments referring to the death of her brother and niece in 2021, and later her father's. The "before" of the tragedy includes luminous and catchy songs, like the single Look what you're doing to me (dedicated to her husband and "ally in the toughest moments", photographer Spencer Ostrander) and the very danceable Heartbreak telephone. On the other side of the barrier, in the "after," we find Reason why and Don't ask me what I do. "I think they are easy to recognize," she says about a compilation that is not at all sad, recorded in two studios in Los Angeles and Williamsburg. "I didn't want it to sound flat or depressing, but rather like the process through which someone who has suffered a loss tries to be happy again. You know? With this album, I discovered that, in the worst moments, there was something inside me that pushed me to hold onto life more strongly."
"A week before he died, my father asked me to finish the last track of the album. When he heard 'Blue Team,' he started crying and hugged me"
Additionally, she will participate alongside her mother, writer Siri Hustvedt, in the tribute to her father organized by the Círculo de Bellas Artes of Madrid and the publisher Seix Barral on October 21 at the Sala de Columnas. "My family has always felt a very special connection with Spain," she confirms. "My father was an incredibly affectionate, approachable, and generous person, always willing to help others, and I think that pays off in the end." Something, she confesses, that she will try to instill in her son Miles, who was born on the first of January this year at one in the morning, perhaps destined to become the number one in whatever he sets out to do. "I hope so!" she exclaims enthusiastically. "In the midst of a flood of memories from the past, motherhood has kept me anchored in the present. It's true that you don't always find time to stop and reflect, but that forward impulse is very stimulating."
Unlike her previous album (composed in a cabin on the outskirts of Malmö), the tracks of Milk for ulcers lead to the coordinates of a small room ("à la Virginia Woolf") that she had set up in her Brooklyn home. "I will live my life for you, wondering every day what you would do," Sophie Auster sings at the beginning of Blue Team, whose title refers to a family code. "Let's say that to belong to the blue team, all you need is to be a good person and never give up on your principles...". And how did Paul react when he heard it? "He cried, hugged me, and told me how much he loved me. He also said he found it a very beautiful song. Emotional, he emphasized, but not cheesy." In Baumgartner, her father's latest novel, the protagonist manages to hear his deceased wife's voice on the other end of the phone. "I don't need to dial any number to summon him," she says, taking a moment to breathe. "He is still here, by my side, with me. He always will be."