Seven years into her career, Cobrah is ready to release her debut album. With a Swedish Grammy under her belt and the music industry finally catching up, she’s ready to dive even deeper.

Since Cobrah’s entrance onto the music scene in 2018, she has made her own distinct mark on the industry by transcending expectations. Cobrah quickly curated her persona and sound, characterized by hooky, tongue-in-cheek lyrics and beats tailored for the dancefloor. She also became synonymous with her gothic, latex-heavy aesthetic, inspired by the underground fetish community. Working as a teacher by day, Cobrah began doing her first gigs at private fetish parties by night. Fast forward to today, and she is now a Swedish Grammy awarded artist and is getting ready to do her first show at Coachella. But first, Cobrah is ticking off another big career goal – releasing her debut album.

Although Cobrah has her primary audience in the United States, and that’s where she plays most of her shows, she still lives in Stockholm, Sweden, where she plans to stay for the foreseeable future.
“I really like to travel; I think that’s one of the biggest perks of the job, but I love living here. I’ve tried to move away from this place many times, but I come back every time. The more I work abroad, the more I miss Sweden and long for it”.
From the start, Cobrah has been working with her trusted collaborators Isac Hördegård and Hannes Roovers, and the duo also helped her debut album, Torn, come to life. The collection follows her latest EP, Succubus, which arrived in 2023 and earned Cobrah her first Grammis award for Electronic/Dance of the Year.
“It felt really good. I don’t really work in Sweden a lot, so I didn’t expect to win. But I don’t think it affects my music writing too much. It’s always an honor to win an award, but you shouldn’t let it affect you as an artist, I think. You’ll be a worse artist if you change or adjust to people’s opinions”.
Succubus saw the artist embody different folklore demons. This time, Cobrah is ready to turn the spotlight towards herself. Having transcended the limits of her brand, the most radical thing left was to turn inward.
“I was longing for a different type of connection with people who listen to my music, and wanted the writing to reflect who I am on a personal level. The conversation around what I do and my expression has been very politicized, and I’ve never really spoken about myself. I wanted to change the conversation, and I think I did that with this album.”
The project has been a long time coming – first, the pandemic got in the way, and then, as she went from being an independent artist to signing with a label, they encouraged her to focus on another EP instead. But in hindsight, Cobrah feels the timing ended up being just right.
“I’m happy I get to make my debut now because you can never do it again, and I’ve had so many more opportunities now to do what I want for the album that I wouldn’t have had five years ago. I would have rushed it more if not for these circumstances, but I don’t think it would have been a better album”.
Torn took two years to make, and another one to put all the visuals together, the longest Cobrah has ever spent on a project. The first song she wrote was the titular track, and she knew immediately that it would also be the name of the album – a subconscious pull towards transcending into a new self.
“The album is about the duality and the growing pains of being really vulnerable and also being very brave in exploring new things. It would have been easy not to challenge myself and to be really comfortable in what I built and stay in that lane, but I’m always enticed by what else I could do. I think this entire album is about transcending. It’s about evolving and opening up”.

The album started to take shape in Paris in 2023, where she stayed in a villa with her producers – a time that inspired Cobrah to take her creativity in new directions.
“It was a turning point in my artistry. We were writing these songs with housey beats and repetitive lyrics, the core of my sound, and I just felt really unchallenged. I felt like I couldn’t make an entire album writing only this type of music. It was just not exciting anymore, and in Paris we really started to experiment”.
The feeling of stagnation came after she felt her sound had been too established. In an interview with NME from earlier this year, she explained the need for a shift: “I’m over myself, I’m ready to move on. If the world has caught up to what I’m doing, then I’m clearly not doing the thing I’m intended to anymore.”
“People would come up to me and say, ‘This sounds like a Cobrah song,’ and it wasn’t even my song. I don’t want to do a song that sounds like a Cobrah song. When I came up with the sound, it felt really challenging; it’s a very specific thing, and it takes a lot of time, energy, and creativity to find that. But then once those pieces are in their place, I don’t want to make the same song over again”.
The longer format gave Cobrah the chance to explore a wider variety of songs, and the album even includes a few ballads. It’s a wider range that’s new to Cobrah, a sentiment that also echoes the album title.
“It feels torn because it has this duality: on the one hand, there are songs that dig very deep, and on the other hand, there are fun, party-oriented tracks. So it varies quite a lot. The making of the album was a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy, where the more I experimented, the more I got lost in my own experiments. It was a very torn process, both emotionally and sonically as well”.

The visual aspects of Cobrah are equally a big part of her artistry. Besides curating her own looks, her music has been featured in campaigns for Jean Paul Gaultier, Mugler, Lancôme, and Viktor & Rolf. For her shoot with The Forumist, she continues to explore her uniquely characteristic world.
“I’m really into the extremes of fashion and the body. I’m always in the tightest corset or I have hooks through my face. I just like to really push myself into doing these crazy things, it excites me very much”.
To reflect the more personal songs on her new album, Cobrah elevated her aesthetic to center herself, a vision based in nude colors that feels restrained compared to her past eras.
“First, I thought I was being boring because I wasn’t exercising all the skills in the toolbox, but it was also the point to be very present and to not transform all the time fully, but to stay as one person”.
The multidisciplinary identity of Cobrah reached a new peak in 2024, when fans of hers were equally delighted and surprised to hear her music featured in Yorgos Lanthimos’ 2024 film Kinds of Kindness – a move that introduced her to a new audience of listeners.
“It was such a cool thing. I’ve seen it many times, and I think the song fits really well into the movie. I think it gives the song some new life; it’s nice when music can live on in other spaces, like in fashion or a cool movie, rather than just on an EP or a streaming platform. Seeing it brings me to life as an artist”.

Talent: Cobrah

Team Credits:

Photography by Marcus Ohlsson at Lalaland Artists
Styling by Ana-Marija Knezevic at Liganord Creative Services
Hair by Erika Svedjevik at Lund Lund
Make-up by Igna Alonso at Lund Lund
Set Design by Aron Heinemann
Production and Special Thanks to Samuel Åberg
Digi-tech by Lucas Lantz
Retouching by Coda Studios
Photography Assistants: Hermine Werner and Majken Jacobsson Sjöberg
Styling Assistant: Lotta Michels
Set Design Assistant: Ivan

Fashion Credits:

1) Catsuit by Charlie Le Mindu Skins SS26. Shoes by ABRA.
4 & 11) Corset by Viola Lahger. Bra and thong by SKIMS.
6) Dress by Dilara Findikoglu. Bra by Aubade. Waist shaper by SKIMS. Shoes by PLEASERS.
7) Dress by Morph Studio. Shoes by PLEASERS.
10) Body by Tribal Hotel. Underwear by SKIMS. Shoes by Balenciaga. Tights by Capezio.