SOPHIA STEL - Object Permanence

We live in a connection free of geographical limits, which today allows us (barring regimes that choose isolation) to discover artists similar to those we usually listen to. During periods when record releases slow down, for instance around the turn of the year, it's interesting to go looking for something new, perhaps fished out from more exotic places. So, while trying to figure out whether there existed, somewhere in the world, an Ethel Cain less tied to the concept of southern gothic, I stumbled upon Sophia Stel, who – if we wanted to sum her up in a few words – could be described as the Ethel Cain of Canada's indie underground.

Judging by the material available, Sophia debuted in May 2022 with a single, "ineedthat", followed a year later by "Old Spice Icon", two tracks built on a form of modern electropop heavily influenced by the pc music crowd. Things get serious from February 2024 onward, when Sophia begins doling out, one at a time, a series of six songs that would later be collected on the EP "Object Permanence", released the following September. This was followed by the expanded version discussed here, enriched with an additional unreleased track and three remixes, giving us what we can consider Sophia Stel's first official album.

Born in Victoria, a stone's throw from the US border, right across from Seattle, Sophia decided to move to Vancouver in 2021, joining the local skater community, coming out, and getting involved in the city's small but lively music scene. In the meantime she took on countless jobs – gardener, house painter, bartender – because Vancouver is very expensive, and if a young person wants to live there and seize its opportunities, they have to hustle. Before long Sophia started circulating her first live footage and a few videos; A.G. Cook noticed her and invited her to open one of his shows, even offering her some advice.

But the multifaceted Sophia doesn't stop there: her slightly rumpled look, the pouty little face, the indie-slacker attitude of someone who hits the gym every day yet is constantly spotted with a cigarette between her fingers, make her a perfect fit for the fashion world. For the 2025 Christmas lookbook, the famous skate brand Palace picked Sophia as its face. She has also recently made her runway debut, walking for Belgian designer Ann Demeulemeester, and has appeared in photo shoots wearing Prada, Balenciaga, Diesel and Adidas. In short, at 26 she's establishing herself as one of the coolest emerging artists of the moment.

But let's get back to the music. Vancouver is a very cold, rainy city, where depression reigns during the winter months. Fertile ground for letting post-adolescent introspection bloom, translating it into words and music, capturing life as it happens. Sophia is genuine, still completely uncontaminated, not yet bound by the constraints of the star-system, not yet standardized: it's we who try – as usual – to categorize, to tame, though not to make musicians seem less dangerous, but rather to try to explain them, tracking down plausible points of comparison. And here the most natural comparison, as I said, is undoubtedly Ethel Cain, especially the Ethel Cain of "American Teenager" and "Crush" – an almost embarrassing resemblance: the looks, the voice, the musical构造... the whole package.

The arrangements on Sophia's songs start out minimal, but almost always tend to ripple and swell as they go, enriched by beats that set the atmosphere alight, dragging the inner analysis into territory worth exploring inside a fashionable club. Constructions that at times might recall the work put together by The xx – but also in the respective solo works of Romy, Oliver Sim and Jamie xx. If you wanted to sound more hyped, you could point to French artist Oklou, another artist in search of interesting, modern intersections between electronics and songwriting.

On "Object Permanence" feelings are traced in the dark, but then emerge, finding their own way toward the light, driven by the typical energy of the outsider. Everything is engineered to trigger an instinctive reaction, to leave an emotional impression. The music on "Static" and "I'm Not Alone" is intimate and vulnerable, all soft synths tracing dreamlike scenarios, reflective lyrics and relaxed Balearic flourishes. But there are also small guitar explosions handled on a Mac ("No Pressure"), the radio-friendly roundness of the title track, and the unstoppable urge to party that surfaces on "You Could Hate Me" and the unrestrained "I'll Take It", the song that changed the course of Sophia's life, a track that's been going viral on TikTok for a few months now, part of the soundtrack to young Americans' summer of 2025.

Sophia draws on the quiet isolation that characterizes much of the life of today's twenty-somethings, exploiting an auto-tuned aesthetic to stay connected with them. Apathy, yet at the same time a search for connection, always the same theme. The three remixes tacked onto the end of the tracklist, three bonuses added to the original EP, lean into the introspective side, while at the same time injecting propulsion, a liberating quality, the urge to come back together and party, especially on the new versions of "Object Permanence" and "You Hate Me". Last autumn Sophia tackled her first European tour, her name is starting to circulate more insistently, and 2026 – or who knows, maybe 2027 – could be her year: is a new star being born?

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13/01/2026